You may be right. I did not take any extra care to verify the black gasket was seated in the top of the plunger receiver. I think it is ok. When I tap plunger twice it seals the top well enough. I think as long as it is not leaking vapors it should be fine. Thanks for watching and commenting. Hope you have a great beekeeping season.

It would be interesting to see what the internal temperature of the hive is on some of these hot days and evenings. Compare white to brown, with upper vent to without upper vent. It would be interesting. Thanks for watching and for the comment. Hope you have a great beekeeping year. Good luck to you.

I am forced to use just foundation for honey supers this year because the wax moths destroyed my drawn comb in my stored supers. In the past, I have not used queen excluders that much. So I am adding supers different ways to see what happens. So far this is what I think I am seeing.... Double brood box or more with a queen excluder - the bees are not working the foundation in the super yet. (They are backing filling the deeps with honey.) Double brood box without a queen excluder - I do not know yet what is happening. Single brood box with a queen excluder - the bees are drawing comb on the foundation. I am not expecting much of a honey crop this year because the bees are having to draw the comb. We shall see. Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great beekeeping year.

@@adventuresinbeekeeping7590 👍🏻

When we say "1 to 1" it indicates the ration of the 2 ingredients. For example 1 pound of sugar mixed with 1 pound of water would be considered 1 to 1. Another example would be 2 pounds of sugar mixed in with 1 pound of water would be considered 2 to 1 sugar syrup. Hope this helps. Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great beekeeping year!!!

Oh I see what you mean.... I should test that. My theory was that if the jar is half full of sugar it would only take a half jar of water to fill it the rest of the way. Then it would be equal parts sugar and water. 1 to 1. I guess the way to test that is to fill one jar half full with sugar and another half full of water, then pour the water into the sugar jar and see how full it is. Again my theory is that half a jar of sugar plus a half jar of water would equal 1 jar of sugar syrup. Humm....

No Sorry. It was a kind of a design/build thing and I did not make a video... I should have. It is 2 pieces of 3/4 inch plywood with a heavy duty lazy-susan from Lowes between them. Two stationary stands bolted to the top piece of plywood. Make sure there is a perfect 90 degree angle between them so that the boxes turn out square. The push pull toggle clamps are mounted on a wooden tower to get them in the right position. Everything is bolted together (no glue) so that it can be modified if necessary. The wood towers are bolted together using threaded wood inserts so that the height could be modified if necessary. Hope this helps. Thanks for watching. I hope you have a great beekeeping season!!!

I do not think so. I think these bees came from a really strong hive that you can see with the bees on the front of the hive near the beginning of the video. There are still bees in that hive. Bees have 2 methods of reproduction. The one of course is new baby bees, the other is swarming or dividing the colony. The current queen leaves with about 1/2 of the bees to establish new hive. The current queen leaves the hive just before the new queen(s) the hive has been raising are ready to emerge.

@@adventuresinbeekeeping7590 That's awesome! I was hoping it meant you got two colonies from one of your own!

Sorry to hear this. It could be what is going on with a couple of these as well. One cannot tell for sure unless you open it up and look in and see the cluster. I will take a closer look on a warmer day. I am curious about sugar cake and pollen patty consumption as well. Thanks for watching.

The Hive-IQ system has many great features, super insulated, boxes fit together well to keep out pests and drafts, heavy metal top cover, metal screened bottom board (if you like that), and a nice way to reduce the entrance. There are some well thought out options like the way to split the hive box into two nucs and a way to add a pollen trap. There is an app (I have not tried yet) that works with the built in electronic tag. This is not a full featured review, but here are a couple of issues that I have experienced. 1. They do not work with regular 10 frame wooden boxes or shims. 2. They are working on creating a hive top feeder that is to be available soon. (They showed a prototype at NAHBE.) 3. The lid fits very tight so there is almost no room between the frames and the top for sugar or pollen patty. They say it is geared toward the commercial beekeeper, maybe a commercial beekeeper might not need all of the features like some of the other insulated products. I did a video showing the features up close. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/o5ZmlauCuJ6ok3k.htmlsi=QVw2vEJWVeJLWpwm. This is my first year using it, so we will see.... Thanks for watching. Hope you have a great beekeeping season this year!!!!

Yes I should have minimized back in the fall. That yellow hive is a Hive-IQ hive and it does not play well with wood. Talked to them at NAHBE, they have a top feeder in the works but no good current solution. Still trying to think of / craft something. Thanks for the advice. Thanks for watching. Good luck on this year’s beekeeping season.

Agree, “feed should be put right where the bees are located”. Did not think about peeking under the next box to see where they were. Thanks for the advice. Thanks for watching. Best of luck on this year’s beekeeping season.

This is a great question. I have not heard of anyone putting water in the hive for them. If there is a warm day here in Ohio and Kentucky they can go out and get it. They probably can get some water from the landing board if it is not frozen. There is a bit of water in the honey. Many beekeepers worry about too much water in the hive due to condensation that happens when warm moist air from the bees comes in contact with the cold air or a cold surface. That brings us back to your question, “where do bees get the water”. Not sure. Thanks for watching and commenting. Best of luck in this year’s beekeeping season.

Leaving or removing the frame feeder has been a debate for me. This is the first year leaving them in. We will see what happens. I certainly don’t want small hive beetle maggots. Thanks for the advice. Thanks for watching. Best of luck in this year’s beekeeping season.

Bees from neighbouring hives go in and rob the honey out of a hive where the bees that were in it had already left (absconded) for whatever reason. Bees will also go in and rob out weak hives that don't have enough bees to defend itself.

@@highlandhoneybee I think they were weak and could not defend the entry from other honey bees and yellow jackets that were taking advantage of the resources in the hive.😥

Yes pests will use any hole they can find that is not guarded by the bees. Ants, Varroa mites, small hive beetles, wasps and even mice if the hole is big enough. Will the bees use it? It depends. I have seen bees make a hole bigger so they can use it and I have seen them seal up a hole with propolis (bee glue). The smaller the whole or crack the more likely they will seal it up. I will be sealing the end grain and cracks on the finger joints with caulk and painting. I am only about a gallon into my 5 gallon bucket of external "oops paint" that I got for cheap. You should check out the "oops paint" section at your local hardware store. They sometimes have sealer and varnish and stuff like that. Thanks for watching,

LOL that’s a good narrative for the video even though you did not hear it!!! Thanks for watching.

@adventuresinbeekeeping7590 * I was surprised, too... It made listening to your voice that much more fascinating after I reloaded the video!

Thanks for watching. I been thinking about making this video for a while, then I saw your video where you demonstrated the importance of “Measuring twice, cut once.” kzfaq.info/get/bejne/naqHlsaIktumh3U.htmlsi=inxck8Uu90nDAEK5. I still agree with that and practice it, I still make mistakes anyway. I thought it would be fun to make a video with a bit of thumbnail click bait opposite the saying. 8-)…. Using the factory pieces was not my idea. I got it from Scott Hendriks. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/f9dkmNle3t_ch2w.htmlsi=dmblQZW9sHyfjoNM . I cannot find the video where I saw it. He is a beekeeper but has a bunch of woodworking videos. You will find that he loves to make jigs. Thanks for watching! God bless and have a great day!!!

Hey there Clive! Great to hear from you. Thanks for watching. Sure he can use it. LOL!!! Your daddy could probably make a better video. 😻

Meow! I'll tell him thankyou!@@adventuresinbeekeeping7590

I do not really have a number. It has been a sparse fall so I have been feeding sugar syrup in frame feeders. Sometimes it seemed that I was just keeping them alive instead of helping them build winter stores. So last year I made 1 lb sugar cakes and kept adding them as they take it. This means I had to check them often. I missed the timing once and lost 2 hives. So this year I plan to put 1/2 inch wire mesh in these feeder shims and make my sugar cakes right in the shim. Not sure how many lbs that might be…. Maybe 10lbs??? Then I should not have to check as often. Thanks for watching! Hope you have a success over-wintering your bees.

@@adventuresinbeekeeping7590 Thanks for the info, it helps a lot.

Greeting, Thanks for watching. Hope your bees do well this fall and winter and are ready for a great season next year!

👍

Thank you so much for the great advice. You are right, I will remember to break up the root ball next time. Also, I never thought about the "just a bigger pot" issue, so I will remember to mix the existing top soil with the better garden soil before filling in. Thank you so much.

​@adventuresinbeekeeping7590 you're absolutely welcome thank you for the entertainment and good luck on your adventures in bee keeping

Thank you! It was fun to make.

Just checked AmericanMeadows.com and they indicate that some sunflowers take 100 - 110 days to bloom. I have another update coming soon we are at about 6 weeks and no blooms yet. Thanks for watching. Have a great day.

Thanks, will do!

Yes, thank you. Blessings to you.