Learn Something Today: Honey Bees 101 How’s it all Work?

folks today on the Stony Ridge Farm Channel we're going to show you a lot of cool stuff about keeping [Music] bees so we're about to pull in Triad B Supply that's in Trinity North Carolina Triad be supply.com this is not an advertisement for those guys but my buddy John runs this he is a standup guy he just a great person and I don't mind giving him some exposure on the channel plus we need some honeybees we lost all of our beehives last year due to me not checking on the bees like I should have so let's pull on in here to try out be Supply and check out what our new package of bees looks like they come from Georgia and they were just trucked in here today you can also buy honeybees and buy beekeeping equipment from Triad be supply.com talk to John he's a cool dude yeah who is this this is a new person I haven't seing she's on the phone customer support this is John this is Phoebe all right [Music] hey all right guys I told you this is John from Triad B Supply John good to have you here man thank you so much for ordering my bees for me try ATB supply.com right that's right is there a phone number people need to know 336 475 5137 all right good deal now you do packages of bees three times a year is that right well this year two times two times this year okay and the bee industry's kind of been down a little bit last year you said it was down a little bit nobody's scared there's no kind of craziness going on in the world so the bee industry kind of slowed down but we're picking back up up this year so we've got an increase now let me tell you a funny story the first time I came out here was like 15 years ago to get my first bees and I had a big old beard I took 20 minutes 30 minutes off from the hospital something like that ran down here to get my bees and one got me right in the mouth then I went back to take care of my patient said the hot this right here it was pretty funny guys check out John's website tribe supply.com I'll post a link down the video description we're going to get a package of bees this is what a 3 lb package three lb they come from Georgia yep back uh Gardener spell B from Bley okay got you they're the largest uh Queen breeder in the Southeast nice and these are Italians they're Italians nice let's get them load them up so Pro tip I've got the honeybees back here in the back floorboard this is their package we'll see a little bit more of that soon um we'll talk a little bit about what's in the package there are queen bees inside the package but if you're taking them in the inside of your car which is most likely what you're going to do be sure they brush them off real good before you put them in your car so you don't have bees buzzing around and causing an accident cool let's head on back to the Stony Ridge so we've made it home from the Honey Bee store Triad be Supply those guys are so awesome just great friends so what we have here is a three lb package of bees each one pound of bees equals about 3500 B so we're pushing the 10,000 B Mark right here 10,000 10,500 bees something like that correct my math if I'm wrong so what we've got to do here is we've got to introduce these bees into a standard Hive and these are eight frame hives this is a 10f frame Hive right here and I'm leaving it empty because I know I'll catch a swarm for my neighbors's bees sometime soon so I'm going to walk you through exactly what I do and you could do it different everybody does things different we're not going to be using smoke today to smoke our bees we're not going to be really putting too much pressure on these bees either we basically have to remove this little cardboard piece right off of the top right here we don't want to irritate the bees too much either but they're going to be mad I've got the solution to keep them from being mad so we'll pop that off inside there is a canister that canister is filled with sugar water it's probably high fructose corn syrup I mean what can can you say guys sugar is expensive high fructose corn syrup is super cheap you can buy it in huge totes that's probably what they're drinking right now it's not what I want my bees to drink so I want to get them off that as soon as possible how however we do want them to have that syrup for feeding purposes as we initially put our bees in the hive and I'll show you how we do that really quickly I've got one Hive that's not quite put together and the other Hive is put together so let me show you real quick oh the tools you'll need a great big magnet a little magnet right here magnet hook that's for sliding that uh jar out of there hopefully it's not aluminum jar a b brush very simple and a hive tool this is just a hive tool you want long pants on if you want to tuck your uh pants into your socks you can I don't really do that you just got to be careful because you know if you're shaking bees out they're going to get on the ground they can go up your pants leg so when they go up your pants leg they don't like it and they tend to sting valuable parts that are down there in your pants let's go over here and show you what we got so guys this is what it looks like this is going to be the eight frame now we don't need two supers I do all medium supers some people do deeps I do all mediums cuz in the winter time or in the fall the bees tend to move down in the hive and I need them up in the hive we need our food up high and our bees down low so we've got to think about that and if you have all medium supas you can rotate them around however you like if you have a deep which is a deep box you can't rotate it so that's my thought process right there and it's also the thought process of the beekeeping class that I took 15 years ago so let's take a look at what we got here this is our package of bees again three lbs there's a queen in there in a cage the queen is attached to this little tab right here and we're going to have to get her out of her cage right here is the hive complete you want your hive entrance to be at the smallest hole okay we want to dissect this really quickly so you see how this is empty right it's empty in the top it's empty on purpose this is where we're going to set our canister of sugar water right here so the bees can come up and access it let's take this top off right here now we're going to take this off this is called a top cover okay now when we introduce our bees we're going to take out four frames just like this these frames are frames of comb that are already drawn out they have a little bit of Hive moth issue going on right now which I'm not a huge fan of so we're actually going to move the hive moth frames to the outside edge of the hive now these bees will come in here and they'll clean up but you want to do a little bit of housekeeping beforehand see that's ready that's ready as soon as that Queen pops out she'll be able to lay she'll be able to lay her eggs so if you can get drawn comb like this this is from our bees last year then use that drawn comb okay it's important all right so what we're going to do I'm actually going to dust this out a little bit that's why you need your be brush set this guy over here we're going to do a little housekeeping back to our uh entrance reducer to the smallest hole right there now we are ready for bees here so we'll put bees in we'll put the hive cover on we'll put the jar on and then we'll put the other super on top of that I do not do this without wearing the appropriate PPE I am not going to do this without a jacket some people do that I don't like it this is warm water okay just a squirt bottle of warm water here's what I'm going to do to tame my bees I'm going to hit them with some warm water not hot hot water just lukewarm okay want to calm them down a little bit we want to soak them up a little bit so when they fall they fall down into the hive there we go just like so we don't want the bees concentrating on stinging us we want the bees concentrating on getting that water off of them and also you can see how they're kind of bunching up to stay warm okay we don't want to kill them so you don't want to drown them and we're going to take this we're going to pop it see all those bees we're going to soak them again a little more okay good amount of water on those bees it'll be okay they'll be fine okay the demeanor of the bees just goes down to kitten demeanor once we do that with the uh water bottle I don't want to smoke them because I'd rather just use water if I can I'm going to test out my magnet make sure it's going to lift my jar out and it will see that okay now we're going to go ahead and we're going to free up our Queen cage which is right here all this is held together with staples there we go okay and I'm going to get my B jacket now our Queen is attached via this little critter right here I'll show you trying to pull out my jar this jar is Way full that's a heavy jar okay this is our Queen cage Our Queen is marked in there with a green Mark we got our Queen we're going to set her to the side for just a second we're we're going to shake our bees in very very simply we're going to flip and shake them in just like that that's a bunch of bees and they're not going to be happy about it that's okay so wetting them down also made them stick to each other quite a bit get as many out as you can then flip it over ready to rock and roll get your queen get her over here get her ready set her down slip back in the four frames that you removed you might hear some bees on my microphone they do not like that microphone at all they think it's a bear need to go ahead and get that cork out there's a little cork right there sometimes you can get this with a hive tool and what that is is candy it's called Queen candy and the honey bees will eat through that Queen candy there we go remove that cork they'll eat through that to the queen so it gives them time to let the queen bond to The Hive slide this in there they'll start gobbling up the queen candy flip this guy over where this is on the outside you'll see that in a second we'll walk around it sugar water right on the top so they've got a snack put our medium super on the top of that okay kids get out don't want you in there all right your goal is to not have bees in the top Super you don't need bees in the top Super now you see there's a hole right here we got to plug this hole we can plug this hole as simply as stuffing a little bit of grass in it to keep the bees from going in there or in my case I've got some burc comb wax that I'm just going to stick right into that this will only be here for about two days guys so you don't really have to worry about it so much I'll address that just a little bit more when I get done filming you can see there's a little pandemonium going on right now it's okay they're figuring it all out not a big deal this is totally normal these guys are calming down already and everything's looking good that's how you introduce a package of bees to your hives if you have any questions please post them down there again thanks to tr B Supply for helping us out every single year we get bees from Triad B Supply it's very normal for the bees to come out of their package and you'll see little spots little dots that look like honey on the ground or around the hive that's their poopy so they've been in there and they haven't gone to the bathroom most of them haven't gone to the bathroom so they'll make a maiden flight and they'll go to the bathroom then they'll go back in in about two days I'll come out here I'll pop the covers I'll smoke them and I'll pull those Queen cages out and we'll check the frames and make sure that they have some eggs in them awesome having frames that already have been drawn out like that gives them a huge jump start it's almost like getting a nucleus Hive or a hive that's already set up soon as that Queen's out she'll breed and she'll start laying eggs cool thanks guys hit that like button subscribe to the channel love to have you back here on the Stony Ridge Farm we just put the baby chicks in the baby chicken mobile see you next time wo come on down to the Stony Ridge bring your wife and bring your kids for living life and swe that's the way suppos to be sty just going to introduce you this is John John hey how you doing shake my hand blooper burp so when they go up your pants leg they don't like it and they tend to sting valuable parts that are down there in your pants this works I did bring one over I thought we can go get that and dummy now I'm prepared eny to rescue themselves from uh from a far AAR a forest fire good amount of water on those bees it'll be okay they'll be fine okay