First Year Taking Care of Bees
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- This video shows us removing a totally unexpected honey harvest, three months after bees arrived here. We left plenty of honey for the bee colonies which are now substantial, as you see.
They are Buckfast bees, famously calm.
Homeacres new land is a great space for bees, and there are many flowers in the hedgerows hereabouts, and around the gardens. My friend Briony Plant has experience with bees, and found a local bee company who could install new colonies in the spring.
I sent my order in February for three new colonies and they arrived later than expected on 22nd June, after a cold spring which delayed bee breeding. There were not many bees in each colony when the hives were set in their new home, but they always seem happy and exceptionally busy foraging, and breeding.
The Black Bee Honey Company look after thousands of hives. They and Briony checked the hives every week or two through the summer. This autumn we left a good weight of honey for each hive, and the varroa treatment is mostly thyme.
www.blackbeehoney.com
Jed Russell is jed.k.russell on Instagram.
Matt Somerville is the 'no dig bee man' I mention at the beginning, and his website is beekindhives.uk, well worth a look.
My garden is for selling vegetables off 1/3 acre or 1300sqm. It is no dig.
I have written eleven books about no dig and growing vegetables, and you can pre-order my new book Skills For Growing from my website, shipping just before Christmas, charlesdowding.co.uk/product/...
Learn more about my methods in these extensive video guides you can purchase charlesdowding.retrieve.com/s...
Briony Plant is on Instagram @ba.plant and she gives massage clothes-on in a chair, foetal position www.bodycarecoach.com
This video was edited by Alessandro, who is Spicy Moustache on You Tube
/ spicymoustache
He filmed the introduction, I filmed the middle section with my phone, and Black Bee filmed the extraction process.
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Beautiful to see Bees in your NoDig garden.
So interesting! Yummy honey from you garden! Awesome!
BEEEE----AUTIFUL !!!!!!!!!
I grew up with hives in my parents small backyard....it was dad's hobby until he became a diabetic. How things hv changed in the equipment used but principals still the same. Dad is now 87 and l will be showing him your video!! They are amazing creatures we would not survive without them ❤
Thanks Kerrie and I hope he enjoys it
Hi Charles, good to see you've joined us beekeepers. If you want something that's more equivalent to no-dig in the bee world, but not as unaccessible as Bee Kind Hives (which I love), then look up Phil Chandler. He's not so far from you and has been teaching people for years about barefoot beekeeping - basically as natural as you can get, whilst having accessible hives. Smoking the bees doesn't calm them. It's probably akin to putting a fork in your soil, and it's very rarely necessary. And several people mentioned the flow hives - yes they are too good to be true. Blessings from Holland.
Thank you Dominic, I have heard of Phil and shall look him up because I like the sound of what you say. And that is interesting about the smoke, and about the flow hives!
🐝🐝🐝🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🧡💛🐝🐝🐝
I LOVE honey so much. As a child, I ate peanut butter and honey sandwiches EVERY DAY for lunch for years even though my mother would have liked me to have a more varied diet, LOL! Such an amazing process by such tiny creatures.
Yes, quite amazing!
I would love so very much to have bees
VERY lovely bees
That is interesting 🤔
May bee something to consider in the future.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
😀
thank you very much charles❤️
Wow! Excellent information and very interesting
Wow.....so many bees 🐝🐝🐝🐝 just beautiful
My Irish black bees are so chill I've been able to just stop using any smoke, they're just that calm. Only down side is they are that chill about everything including growing as a hive
Hmm, mostly good for you :) nice to hear
hahahha
How I wish we had Buckfast bees in Australia! My bees are mean and nasty.
Beautiful video thanks Charles and all
You definitely need to keep bees of your own to produce saleable honey to go along with your market garden. I have been a beekeeper for over 40 years, and it's one of most rewarding experiences I have had in my life. The bees are just amazing creatures, there is so much to learn about them. I normally operate about 35-40 hives and sell the honey at four stores year round.
Thanks for this John. That is impressive.
So far so good for us :)
Какие же вы молодцы!!!😍 👍👍👍 of Russia 🇷🇺
I hope you enjoyed the honey Charles. Honey from your own hives is like enjoying strawberries fresh from the plant. Not much can beat it!
So good thanks! More than special :)
As the chair of an allotment society I should add that insurance companies have strict rules on keeping bees. Our insurance company charge £50 PA but also a whole lot of hoops for a bee keeper to climb through.
Such beautiful honey. Very fascinating process. I enjoyed this video very much. Thank you!
🍯 thanks
Very nice Charles. Don't forget to feed and protect with a windbreak if you can. I have kept bees for over two years now. I love the little critters. Keep a tube of tooth paste (as we call it hear) close. The salt in it pulls the venom out when you get stung. A nice old beekeepers trick. And you will get stung. That's what they do.
Thanks for the tip Wayne, really nifty!
Awesome, can't wait to try this myself
That initial drone shot is fantastic
I enjoyed this video so much, thank you 😘
Very informative video, Charles.
Glad you liked it!
Great to see you're enjoying your beekeeping. Greetings from Conwy Beekeepers, North Wales
Thanks for having a look :)
beautiful video i adore beesx
Wonderful presentation. I even learned how bees keep their hives warm in cold weather. All designed by God. Thanks, Charles.
Excellent. Nice harvest of honey. I have my first hive this year. Tiny colony from a swarm to begin with so just building them up this year. Hopefully honey next year.
Best of luck and an exciting prospect
I love bees!
Fascinating!
What fascinating creatures they are and definitely need protecting! Fab video, Charles!
Glad you enjoyed it Irene
I never thought tonise a heat gun to melt the caps! It's out first year harvesting and we tried the knife, and comb but I think I like how the heat gun melts the caps and doesn't appear to damage the comb as much
Jed will like this comment :)
How lovely!
Nice start the “no dig bees” thans even more fun!
That was very informative, Charles, thank you for that wonderful video. May God continue to bless you and your family. Take care
Glad you enjoyed it Phil
Lovely to see this, Charles. It's like a natural progression for your no-dig garden. Very fitting 👌
This is so neat!
It would be nice to have a follow up video.. I am learning about bees fascinating creatures
I was literally just looking up beehives! Very timely my friend.
My neighbor growing up had bees, I was fascinated watching him work the hives. Funny tho, I don't remember him ever sharing with us. This was a fun throw back for me. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.!
Oh wow!
Big thumbs up from Serbian beekeeper :)
I am honoured 🍯
Nice video thanks for sharing, hope you and your bees are well :)
🍯 thanks yes
Nice video Mr Charles..
Thank you kindly Lance
nice video charles
Thanks Steven
Bravo. Cela fait très plaisir de voir les abeilles. Quelle belle initiative.
Now you have bees and honey to be proud of! Congrats!
What a great video, loved it. Big thanks to the briliant Black Bee Honey crew and the beautiful bees they brought to Homeacres 👏🏻🌻🐝
and to you!
Hi Charles , a great video. It's also my first year of beekeeping experience and I chasing CZcams for such content. Will be glad to see more such videos from you. Good luck !
Thanks, and best of luck!
Lovely, just lovely! As a former commercial beekeeper, I still love honeybees. I no longer am able to have hives due to a back injury preventing me from lifting the supers, but I now have native bee houses to ensure there are plenty of pollinators for the vegetables and fruit trees.
Thanks, and it sounds like you are managing what must be a frustrating situation 🌺
How wonderful! Good for you. Enjoy. 🥰💖🌻
In the video i noticed you asked if the frame was heavy; if you're worried about weight maybe a horizontal hive might be better than the ones you have now (where you have to remove the supper)
Leo Sharashkin has some information about natural bee keeping and horizontal hives if you're interested.
Thanks for the tips
Thanks´ Charles for showing us how to do it. I tried it, though in smaller quantities, a couple of litres, and it worked out fine. I kept the mother of course and used it for some red wine left overs; we´ll see how that will turn out. The apple cider vineagar was easy and useful. Have used my own batch all winter, spring and summer, and now, in July, I´m running out - very soon I need a new harvest of apples! Thanks´again for inspiring us! Greetings from Sweden/Stockholm, 59 N, 18 E.
Most impressive Nanna!
Hopefully starting my first hive next year. Thinking of going for a top bar hive.
Sounds great
Great!!! 😍😍😍
Since you have your own honey, now would be a good time to start making mead. It's a fun project during the winter months.
Thanks, actually it's not a huge amount and I would rather give it as a present because it's so special :)
Nice to see your bee hives ,I kept bees for 5 years working up to 6 hives, I loved keeping them but due to busy life, I had to give them up but I do love watching videos on people working them.
Cheers Neville
VERY NICE ..GOOD LUCK,,,,....LIKE
Thank you 👍
I never find my queens that fast anymore! My first one, 10 or so years ago, was so big and beautiful l could see her in an instant. Good to see him not using gloves. It may be counter intuitive but it keeps you from being too mean and forceful and they are gentle in return. Keep going. Love the videos.
Thanks Edward, and nice point about gloves
I have watched video from here (North America ) and have never seen that plate on top before....something different!
Amazing.
Пчелы это хорошо👍👍👍
Great to learn how beehives are organized and how the different types of bees operate in the hives👍🏾
Jed is my friend and i can tell you He loves his bees cant stop talking about it ( in a good way ) well done guys great video ! 👍
Thanks Lukas ❤🐝
You're up late!!
I'm on morning shift.
Love it as a Canadian beekeeper it is interesting on how other places keep bees. The things that are the same and those that are different. We like to say they kick the drones out or they would spend the cold winter eating honey and watching bee sports. Love to just sit and watch the bees come and go. Great way to decompress after the work day.
Yes we like watching bee sport! Thanks for sharing
Why was the almond oil put in and heated? To push the bees down farther down into the hive?
That may have not been explained fully.
Very interesting video!! What lovey bees you have Charles🤩💛😍
Thanks, and yes, so that he could remove the top box with its honey, while bees stayed below.
Wow that was interesting. They are so interesting little insects. I hope to get a couple of hives myself
So cool.
Great video !
Thanks for the visit 🐝
AMAZING!!!
I have four hives on my property. I used to keep them, but each time I got stung the reaction got worse so I have the local beekeeping club care for them now. We split the honey. I definitely get the better of the deal because I also get the fruit of their pollination in my gardens. I still enjoy sitting by the hives and watching the bees come and go. Not sure why, but it’s so very relaxing.
Thanks for sharing Don, and I so agreel
Honey, bees... i love it too. Also glad you're in business. All the best, Charles and your group.☀️
What a great video. It's so interesting to see the make-up of a hive and how the colony works. Thank you.
ya te echaba de menos😊! tus abejas me recordaron parte de mi infancia , a mi padre le decian el OSO..por que le gustaba sacar la miel de los panales!yo era quien ayudaba cuando era mas joven...lo bonito es que las abejas son muy nobles y trabajadoras,si las tratas con amor te daran el nectar mas dulce que hubieras probado..!haces una hermosa labor compariendo tus videos! he aprendido mucho de ellos, espero en dios poder algun dia poner el invernadero de mis suenos para que los infantes de la escuela puedan disfrutar de la naturaleza mi querido charly
Gracias por tu hermoso mensaje Ruby y tu padre suena un buen hombre. ¡Buena suerte ayudando e inspirando a los niños!
That was so fun to watch! Thank you Charles and friends. I tried keeping bees, I failed, but I love them all the same.
Our pleasure!
So interesting, thank you:)
I like how you are always looking for new opportunities on your farm! Very inspiring! Thanks for sharing and I believe that your honey will taste amazing. Cheers! Dusan
So nice of you Dusan and yes the flavour is sweet flowers!
Hmmm. Ok There are many ways to manage bees,
I leave honey for the bees to last the winter.
No excluders for me 😁👍
The learning curve is massive by the way :)
Yes indeed and thanks for sharing
I highly recommend a Flow Hive if you are going to only keep a couple hives on your property. Far easier to extract the honey. I have two myself and they are an incredible invention! I enjoy seeing you get involved in new hobbies.
Thanks for sharing, they seem 'too good to be true'!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig They were invented by a father and son duo, you would absolutely love it! The results speak for themselves :). Looking forward to the water hole video as well !
Welcome to the family of beekeepers, Charles now you can ask me for advice... I have bees for years.... and I use wooden boxes like yours only in the german DN (Deutsch Normal) format... And I have my way of doing it, as bee friendly as possible (I think), without beeing dangerous (Varoa and other 'pests') for surrounding bee hives... I do take honey from the bees but only if the bees have enough to eat for winter, I avoid feeding sugar as much as possible...
Haha this is cool and thankyou Sascha 🐝
Maravilloso video... no puedo comer miel... pero me encanta la idea de ayudarlas a crecer y tener lugares seguros... son tan importantes y estamos acabando con ellas ... además de flores que les gustan he puesto bebederos para ellas... Gracias como siempre Charles.
That is lovely Griselda and thanks for writing
I had a little honey buddy that was buzzing around my back door and I left some honey out and it was just enough for him and after he fed, he'd leave. This happened for a couple days. He'd come around and buzz around my head or land on my chest like he recognized me. So cute. I would tell him, Hold on and I'll get your honey. I miss him. It's cold now. Poor thing.
That is cute
Hi Charles, good to see you again. I also started beekeeping in June this year, currently I have one hive full of bees and another hive is waiting assembly to be ready for next season.
Great to hear, exciting!
Honey bees are indeed amazing. Good luck with your project but can I put in a plea for all the many species of native bumble bees and solitary bees. They are also excellent pollinators especially for fruit but depend for their survival on wildflowers. Introducing huge numbers of honey bees into an area means there is much more competition for a limited food supply unless you provide a large area of wildflower meadow too.
Oh dear! Hope we have not overdone it. Am not thinking to increase hive number
This is something I'd like to work my way into starting up in the next couple years. Seems like a big win all the way 'round!
Thanks for sharing this, and all the gardening content/inspiration.
Best,
Bob (Zone 6, BC, Canada)
Thanks, and best of luck Bob.
I think someone is constantly looking for new challenges.. haha, now its bees! :-D
I've gotten addicted to the No Dig, suddenly gardening is a cycle, that makes SENSE. Even weeding the stone part feels useful, as I need more greens for the compost now in autumn! I have no clue WHY this method makes me so enthusiastic, but it did.
Thank you Charles and others who brought me on this path!
I am happy to read this because enthusiasm is so important to success and I'm pleased to have motivated you!
So very amazing 🐝🐝🐝🐝
Really interesting. And I love to see how the bees are shown real care by the bee keepers. Thanks for showing us
Loved this , I love bees .
Charles I don’t see you climbing up trees to collect the honey though interesting as it might seem, enough danger at ground level. That was most interesting and a nice drop of honey collected.
😀
Very interesting! Thank you!
Very interesting and very well filmed. Thanks Charles!
That brings back great memories about hives we had. Wonderful fragrance from the smoke and honey. Such a rewarding skill. Lots to learn about bee behaviors, what they need, how often to harvest and how much. It’s incredible how much honey just one super produces. Good luck with this new venture, though it sounds like you’re well underway.
Thanks Christine
So wonderful to see ❤️. Had no idea there were hives with that size of the frames, have only seen the really large ones. This seems definitely more managable.
You are very welcome
I am so glad you are getting so into it Charles! It would be nice to see how much your bees increase your yields. My brother is a migratory bee keeper in California and is paid to put his hives over farms of potatoes etc. Take care my learning friend...the sound of excitement in your voice in the background is one aspect of this brilliant video. Cheers!
Cheers Craig, and fascinating about potatoes!
They must be using bees to pollinate potato flowers when breeding new varieties. There would be no other reason to have bees on that crop.
I am fascinated!
Such an informative segment.
I want to learn MORE!
First year for us too here in Australia!! Welcome to the club and love all your videos Charles:)
I love watching these sorts of videos, and I have a friend close by who also has Bees, but sadly I can't go to them, because I'm allergic to them. However, I'm very fortunate to be one of the few to receive some of their hard work. I don't know if you've ever tried doing it, but I highly recommend fermenting some of your Garlic in your own raw Honey. You won't be disappointed. You just crush the cloves as you peel them, stick them in a Kilner jar, cover with Honey, and leave to sit until it stops bubbling. I've just done this years batch, which is actually all I grow my own Garlic for. I leave it for the whole year, but you don't have to, it's just by the time you have, the Garlic is mild, and sweet all the way through. Great for putting on all those salads!
Sounds amazing Suzanne and you are the third person to recommend it!
@@CharlesDowding1nodig Excellent. I think originally I picked it up from Stacy, on the Doug and Stacy channel years ago. She has loads of preserving/fermenting recipes, and I've used quite a few. Stacy is a wealth of such information!
awesome
So glad you have posted this we are looking at getting a hive and have done a course on beekeeping but keep getting cold feet as have young children. I think this video may sway us in the right direction.
So educational :) and cute! I love the pollen bag on their legs. They are such amazing creatures.