Love the clear explanation and simple drawings. Nice going.
@Digger9274 жыл бұрын
I've been hearing about OTS for the past few weeks here and there, decided to look it up this evening. I discovered I knew about it and have been practicing it since the late 90's...this is how I do my walk away splits. The key difference between the way I've done my WAS and some others is that I take the old queen and her brood frame bees and leave the split as the OG hive just queenless. This simulates the swarming action and gives the split most of the workers. Most people don't notch under the desired cells to encourage the queen cells either for WAS but this works well, been doing it for decades now. Glad I looked it up and also glad I don't need to learn anything new. Anyone looking at doing this, make sure there are drones around or you are too early to be making queens.
@Jwdieselit4 жыл бұрын
Great explanation! Thank you for making this visual!
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
Welcome :)
@tomwickham89384 жыл бұрын
Thank you for such a concise explanation. Mel's book is the authority, but I am too much of a novice to understand it all.
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
Most welcome, Tom.
@natserog6 жыл бұрын
great video! visuals sure help understand the process!
@TheBeeFarm6 жыл бұрын
Thx for the note :)
@CastleHives4 жыл бұрын
At a toss up on OTS. I’m in the Facebook group, learning. I’m also in NE Ohio, hr south of Cleveland.
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
Welcome. If you have questions, just let me know.
@MrLoCoBee6 жыл бұрын
Nice video thank you
@woodlandharvesthoneycompanyllc6 ай бұрын
Mel Disselkoen tells you move the box with the original queen 2 miles away. If you don't have place where you can do that how do you handle that part.
@TheBeeFarm6 ай бұрын
In his book, he talks about setting it on the same pallet or a couple miles away whatever your choices it’s not a big deal really I never move mine other than a foot or two away on the same pallet or somewhere else in the yard for that matter, it’s not been a factor for many years.
@woodlandharvesthoneycompanyllc6 ай бұрын
@@TheBeeFarm John thank you. I am looking forward to using this method to raise and keep my bees alive. Up until now it's been move forward fall back no matter what I did. I seemed never to be able to get ahead.
@robertpaluska63544 жыл бұрын
John, I have loved your videos and watched your lectures a few times already. I purchased Mel’s book yesterday. I currently have 4 hives coming out of winter. One hive in particular has 2 brood boxes with at least 8 frames total brood,and I’ve been peeling brood off of her since two weeks ago and giving frames of brood to my weaker hives to even them out. This hive is still going like nuts and I’m not sure if they will make it in just the two boxes. My swarm season is around May 8th. I don’t think they will make it without more room. Would you add another brood box to this colon? I have drones in all of my hives, but it’s been cold and rainy this spring (Oregon). Would you start OTS now on that hive, (April 2nd) and hope for good weather for breeding or add an additional box and wait until the optimal time of May 8th? Thanks for your time. PS. I love the computer presentations. You make this so simple and explain thing very well.
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
If you have live drones, at least 6 frames of brood and good weather: good time to do artificial swarms.
@natserog5 жыл бұрын
What do you say when someone asks what is the "BIG" difference in OTS system and just a walk away split? What are the benefits?
@TheBeeFarm5 жыл бұрын
@natserog ― Some differences off the top of my head would be: (1) A Walk Away (WA) essentially is splitting colony in half and letting the queenless box raise a queen whereas OTS is doing an artificial swarm with minimum requirements for the new queenless split to grow/thrive (~2 frames of brood, shake or two of bees, empty comb, frame of honey/pollen). So, you're letting the bulk of the bees raise the cells in the queenless/notched box. Quality queens require high density of bees and you're not sacrificing or gambling with that requirement with OTS, unlike a WA. (2) With OTS as described by Disselkoen, you are notching on multiple frames to encourage queen cells on multiple frames a week later which gives you the resources thus to make multiple splits at that point. Folks doing a WA may find all their queen cells on one frame. (3) I get quality queens nearly every time I do OTS "properly" and I don't think the same can be said of WA's reliably, especially for the novice, and thus the negative feelings by some about the general idea and also about OTS due to misunderstanding.
@norfolkhoneybee2733 жыл бұрын
Do you keep some colonies full size in prep for july round of queen rearing to guarantee good supply of drones.or do the colonies that you split in may ,have they built up enough to be good supply of drones for July.
@adumbmilkfarmer97132 жыл бұрын
Will notching eggs work or do they have to be 36 hour or younger larvae?
@TheBeeFarm2 жыл бұрын
It'll work. Some do this.
@AlwaysDoingSomething6 жыл бұрын
How close can the hives be together? Can you literally put one box right next to the other when doing the split?
@TheBeeFarm6 жыл бұрын
Yes, that’s not a problem. :)
@jwchitwood4 жыл бұрын
Spot on about the need for good numbers to make good cells. However, this method totally ignores the fact that 1, 2, and 3 day old larvae are turned into queens in this situation. Only the 1 day old larvae makes a great queen. The inferior queens from 2 and 3 day old larvae emerge first and kill your good queen from a 1 day old larvae being raised as a queen from day one. You are making queens.... but not the best one's you could be making.
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
Jonathan Chitwood i notch the same 36 hour or less larvae i would if grafting. bees, if given choice, will choose the right aged larvae. have been very succesful raising queens and selling nucs annually.
@jwchitwood4 жыл бұрын
@@TheBeeFarm all of the research in the last decade indicates 12-24hrs is the sweet spot for best possible queen..... what the OTS approach ignores is controlling for age at your culling inspection. In the video, this happens on day 10. Your ideal larvae and the less desirable larvae would all be capped at this point. I would put to you; that you would have even better outcomes moving up your cull by one day. And culling capped and nearly capped cells on that day. Leaving the to be capped in the next 24hrs cells as your production queens. Grab a calendar and check the math. Not blowing out your candle, just trying to make it brighter.
@TheBeeFarm4 жыл бұрын
Jonathan Chitwood okay i will think on it and give it a try. always something to learn. thx for taking time to share. any suggested papers/books?
@jwchitwood4 жыл бұрын
@@TheBeeFarm Dr. Spivak's Successful Queen Rearing: Short Course is good. And its the one you won't get at the library. I'd check out the other standards at the library, Queen Rearing Essentials, Queen Rearing Simplified etc. And I think larvae age is the most significant change in knowledge since some of the old standards in queen rearing were written.But the key take away items are, understanding the queen calendar, controlling for correctly aged larvae, lots of nurse bees, good nutrition and quenlessness. Once one grasps those concepts firmly they can do any number of different procedures to produce superior quality queens. You can go out and search the Journal of Apicultural Science for corroboration that 12-24hrs old larvae make better queens. There are any number of articles in there.