- I got my first bees about 1929. I see. You just started out with one, right? Started out with four colonies
- bought over on Jackson Creek. Right. And now how many do you have? I have about 160 up in the Fort Wayne
- area. I have bees at home where I live. I have bees in locations east, eight or ten miles.
- south eight or ten miles west of Whitley County, 20 miles and north of Fort Wayne. In other words, I
- have bees all the way around Fort Wayne. There are a lot of bees up there. A lot of people have bees.
- I see. Now, what would a person need to start beekeeping? What are some of the general necessities?
- Well, of course you need bees. Right. Before you get the bees, you get the beehives.
- You need beehives and all that goes with them. The frames that go in, the beehives, the foundation,
- the sheets of wax that go in the frames. Then you need bees. This would be a good year to have picked
- up bees. They were swarming a lot. You could pick up swarms. Last year I didn't see one swarm. Bees
- swarmed very little last year. You can buy packages from the south, say Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
- Mississippi, so on.
- You can buy packages for this area. Oh, middle of April, last half of April would be a good time to
- get these packaged bees. That's three pounds of bees and a queen. Put them in your hive. Then you would
- have to feed them some to start. A good thing to feed them is a mixture of sugar and water,
- half and half. Mix up a syrup and feed your bees. That'll get them started.
- Right. And then when fruit trees and dandelions start blooming, hopefully they'd be able to get nectar
- to live on and to build up. At that time of year, the queen starts laying a lot of eggs. They're getting
- nectar. They're raising bees for the honey flow that comes in, say, June. I see. Now, what are some
- of the equipment things you need? We know about the hive tool and the veil and the gloves. Now, what
- else do you need?
- Well, you just needed your hive body, which is what? Frames and? The hive itself. Hive body, frames,
- foundation. And you can generally buy these by mail order or something like that? There are companies
- that sell bee equipment. Several companies. And there are dealers. I understand there's one in Fort
- Wayne now that deals in bee equipment.
- This year, he had a hard time keeping enough supers. They seemed to sell out as fast as he got them
- in, I understand. That's because you were getting a honey flow in this part of the country. Right. Up
- in Fort Wayne, ordinarily, we would have a lot of honey on the bees by this time of year. June is the
- honey month. But because of the rain, the wet weather, there hasn't been any honey flow.
- The hives have very little honey in them at this time, and it's getting late enough that I'm getting
- kind of anxious to see what's going to happen. What happens if there's not a honey flow? Will you not
- be able to rob them at all? In other words, you won't be able to sell any honey this year, right? Well,
- the honey crop varies a lot from year to year, depending on the blossoms and especially on the weather. Right.
- And I've always gotten some honey. But here it is, July, haven't gotten any, but still have some hopes
- of getting some honey. But some years they have averaged 100 pound, used to right along average 100
- pound a year. For 100 hives, right? For one hive. Oh, for one hive, I see. 100 pounds on the average.
- And some years, due to the difference in the weather,
- They would maybe average 50 pounds and have had averages down maybe 20, 30 pounds. Depending very much
- on the weather. And of course you have to have the blossoms. What happens when you take the honey off
- the hive and you've got it here in the super? What do you do with it once you've got it in the frames
- and so forth? Then you need an extract to get the honey out of the combs, put them back in the super,
- save the combs,
- Use them again next year. That's one thing about extracted honey. You can use your same combs year after
- year. Now, if you're going to produce comb honey, you put on new foundation, new sheet of beeswax, get
- new combs every year, and then you take the frames out, you lay them down, and you cut that honey out
- in chunks, sell honey, beeswax, and all as comb honey. That's a little more expensive because you're
- Wax is used up and you have to buy a new foundation every year. And they won't make as much honey. It
- takes quite a bit of nectar or honey for a bee to eat to produce wax. They do not produce wax when they
- are not getting a lot of honey. They must be getting very much honey, a good honey flow, then they can
- produce wax and meal combs. Right, now producing this wax, they kind of, we'll get sidetracked here
- a minute, they kind of
- Do they take it into their system and some chemicals or something in their system and they mix it together
- and presto, it comes out wax? Well, how does a cow produce milk? You never had a cow, did you? No, I
- never had a cow. OK, well, you got me there. Now, you feed the old cow real well and she will secrete
- milk. That's about all there is to it. Bees, if they are fed real well on nectar,
- They'll secrete. The kind of nectar to eat, they secrete the bees' wax. Right. The stomach, the bottom
- of the bee, the bottom of the stomach is in segments there. The outside of the bee is in segments. And
- wax will be secreted out between these segments. And the bees will collect that wax and chew it in their
- mouth and form it into wax, flexible wax and build combs. Right.
- The wax is a secretion of a well-fed bee. OK. When they're not getting a lot of food, they cannot produce
- wax. Like when you don't feed the old cow, she isn't going to produce any milk. OK. Now, you mentioned
- when you run the honey through an extractor and it drains down into whatever you have it, drain into
- a bucket or a jar or whatever, is it ready to be sold right then? Or is it treated? Or what's done to
- it? Or is there anything done to it?
- Well, there's two or three different ways. A good part of the honey is then warmed up. I have a tank,
- a bottling tank that will hold three or four hundred pounds of honey. Strain it through cheesecloth
- into the bottling tank and warm it up to 140 degrees and then put it in the jars and put the caps on
- it. It does not granulate. Many people like unheated honey.
- So it comes from the extractor, strain it through a cheesecloth. Need good warm weather to do that,
- because it's hard to get that through that cheesecloth unheated. And sell the unheated honey. But that
- will granulate for most honey. For the honey I get, clover honey, alfalfa honey, it granulates. Now,
- your tulip poplar honey you got this year is not likely to granulate. Some honeys are a little different
- sugars in them, and they
- don't granulate nearly so soon. Some of them granulates right away. OK. Now, some people ask me, honey's
- been cooked. I says, I don't know. What do you mean by cooked honey? Well, they don't know what they
- mean by cooked honey. But 140 degrees certainly doesn't cook anything. You know how many degrees it
- takes to boil water? No. You're going to boil your potatoes, going to boil your green beans. How hot
- do you have to get them?
- Well, I just turn on the burner and boil my water. It boils when it gets to the temperature it boils.
- 212 degrees. 212 degrees. And how close is 212 degrees to 140 degrees? Not very close. You don't boil
- the honey. You don't cook the honey. You warm it. You heat it up. And it will strain better. And also
- it doesn't granulate. So I sell it both ways.
- Right. They want unheated honey. They come out in August when I'm extracting, and I can sell them unheated
- honey, but I tell them it'll granulate. Sometimes when it granulates, that sugar granulates, goes into
- crystals, and the moisture in there is left to not granulate, so the moisture that's left has a higher
- water content, or the liquid that's left, the liquid that's left has a higher water content than the
- honey did, and it can ferment a little.
- I see, okay, well. Ordinarily not, it'll just granulate and not ferment. Okay. Well, is there anything
- else you'd like to say? Anything else you'd like to tell us? About bees and beekeeping? Beekeeping,
- most of the beekeeping is by people just keeping a few hives to get honey from the cells, maybe to sell
- it a little. Right. In Indiana, it's
- It's very difficult to make a living from beekeeping. There are a few places if you keep a lot of bees
- and especially if you take them to Florida or Texas like a lot of people do in the winter time.
- Some people, a few in Indiana do make a living from beekeeping but I could probably count them on one
- hand the number of people that make a living from beekeeping in Indiana. For most people it's a sideline.
- Just a hobby line? More or less a hobby.
- But it's a hobby that if you work at it and know about the bees, it'll pay for itself. I went to Fort
- Wayne. I think I mentioned I had these bees in Fort Wayne. I could make 50 cents an hour painting houses
- in the summertime. I was a school teacher. I thought, gee, I can make that much with bees. So I took
- up some bees.
- second year had bees up there. They made the best crop of honey I ever saw in 1938. A fellow that had
- an old 50, 60 colony said he sure was glad when winter came and then bees quit making honey. That's
- the only time I've ever heard anyone say they're glad the bees quit making honey. He got tired of hauling
- in honey. That was an exceptional year. Alright. Okay. Delmas, thank you very much. Yeah, you're on
- now. Go ahead and start. This is a beehive.
- Honey bees, you can see the bees flying in down here at the entrance. And we want to check in this hive
- and see what condition the bees are in, see if there's any honey. And we need a smoker. A little smoke
- will keep the bees down, keep them under control. When you raise the lid up a little, give them a little
- smoke here, they'll know we're coming.
- the inner cover, pry it up, a little more smoke. Now what does that smoke actually do to them? This
- smoke causes them to go down and fill up with honey. Because they think there's a fire there in the
- hive? Because they think there's a fire in the hive? Yes, that disturbs them. They fill up with honey
- and when they get their stomach full they're in a good humor. Yeah. They won't sting so badly, so much when the
- They have their stomach full. Right. Here we have a super with two, four, six, eight, ten frames. I'll
- see if I can get a frame out. Okay. And we'll see if they have any honey. This is a hive tool. This
- is the thing you need to work a hive with. Kind of like a crowbar, isn't it? The parts are glued together
- with propolis. And when I come up here, I see a frame pretty well filled with honey.
- Now, what's the white stuff there? This is cappings. Over here, more honey's capped. And in these cells
- that aren't capped, there's some honey, some nectar there. And notice the bees are clustering on the
- ones that aren't capped. Right. They're filling up with honey. Right. What about the rest of the super?
- Is it looking pretty good? Can you tell without going into it in detail? They are pretty much like this
- one, partly filled with honey. Yeah.
- Usually there's more honey in the center of the super and the lesser in the outside frames. Those are
- nice white tappings. Now this honey is rather dark honey made from the tulip poplar. Tulip poplar has
- yielded nectar very well this year. Indiana, southern Indiana,
- has a good crop of tulip poplar honey. I live up in northern Indiana where we get mostly clover. And
- we haven't had a good year up there, but a very poor year, the poorest year I've seen in 40 years. But
- they may make some yet. They had a good tulip poplar honey flow down in Kentucky and Tennessee and the
- Carolinas and Virginia all over the southeast where the tulip poplar grows.
- How long will it be before all the frames are filled there, would you say? I would say the tulip poplar
- flow is over. The bloom is over. So they'll be putting in what now? What kind of honey will go in there
- now? And if there's something else that blooms, they may get some more. Well, like clover or?
- Something like that? Well, coming this time of year, second crop alfalfa would be the best guess.
- I see. There is a lot of white Dutch clover around. Uh-huh. Some years, white Dutch clover yields. Right.
- What are you looking for when you go into a hive? Specifically, what are some of the things you look
- for? Well, if we go down here for them, we'll find the brood nest. Pardon me? Find the brood nest. Right.
- Right. OK. That's where they raise the bees. Right. And we should find...
- The brood down there should find eggs in the cells, some of them with larvae, some of them capped over
- where the brood is going through the pupa stage. 21 days after the egg is laid, a full-grown bee hatches
- out. Need a hive tool here again to get these apart. I don't know what's down in here. I haven't seen
- these myself.
- We'll see what we can find. Well, since it's my hive, I can tell you there's mostly honey in there.
- Mostly honey? Yeah, mostly. That's what it's used for. I haven't found much brood in it. These get heavy
- when they are full of honey. How heavy would you say that one is there? Well, that one's half full.
- So it's what, about 30, 40 pounds? More like 20 pounds. 20 pounds. How heavy does one get generally?
- One of these, this size super, would hold 35 pounds of honey.
- I see. Is that one much lighter there? That one very little in it. How about this one? This one has
- a little in it. Are they all drawn out? Is the foundation all drawn out there? Yep. We look at the outside
- here. See here you have your white comb. A little honey. They're working on it. We put a sheet of beeswax
- in here with the base of the cells on it. The bees will
- use wax and build that out. The only time bees can create wax is when they are getting a lot of food.
- When there's a lot of nectar coming in, they secret wax and they use wax to build their combs. I see,
- I see. Now we're going to get down to the deeper part. This is the hive body. And down here we should
- find some brood.
- and get some idea about their queen. About how many bees? Could you estimate how many bees are in a
- hive like this? Well, I'd say this hive has, oh, 30,000, 40,000. Is that good? Is that what they should
- have? Huh? Just an ordinary hive. They may have swarmed. Yeah, that's what I worded. Colonies that haven't
- swarmed have 60,000, 70,000 this time of year.
- Yeah, I was afraid that it swarmed. Now down here you're looking specifically for larvae. This is what's
- called the brood chamber, right? That's the brood chamber. And by looking at the larva, the brood combs,
- I can tell what kind of a queen, how the queen is doing. A good one or an old one? I can tell more about
- the queen by looking at one frame of brood.
- than I can by looking at the queen herself. Now, what you mentioned earlier, a swarm. Why would a beehive
- swarm? There's been more swarming this year than I've ever seen. Well, why? And that's been true all
- over Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, the East, and the West, Minnesota, Dakotas. And two or three things.
- We had an easy winter on them.
- They came through the winter in good shape, and we've had a lot of rain. Yeah, and they don't like that
- rain. And when it rains, that confines them to the hive, and they're crowded in the hive. As a result,
- they will take an ocean to swarm. Bees are happy when they're working. And if we have a good season
- with blossoms and good weather for them to work and give them room to put the honey, they're not likely
- to swarm. I see.
- But if they get crowded, if there's rain, cloudy days till they can't work, they will build queen cells.
- And when the queen cells are about to hatch, the old queen and about half of the bees will go out as
- a swarm. And just find a new home. The old queen's one goes out. They will go out here a ways and settle
- on a tree. Right. Scouts go out in all directions.
- looking for a place to establish their home. And they will find a hollow tree, and I've had them to
- find empty hives that have setting out, and we'll move over there. Now this, they look like they're
- empty. Notice these cells are dark. They've raised bees in them, brood, we call that brood, they've
- raised brood in them. And every time they raise a cycle of brood, the comb gets a little darker. Uh-huh.
- two or three more years this will be black. Now it's kind of brown. And here's just a few sails that
- are capped. There are young bees right now hatching out. I see two or three of them here chewing off
- the cappy. Can you bring that over a little closer to us? Sure. I want to see if I can get a good picture
- of that. Now you tell me about how close. Okay, that's good. That's good. Now let me hold it right there.
- Let me focus in on this now.
- There is one. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I see that. It's breaking out. Now, what kind of bee is that? That's a
- worker bee chewing her way out. If I help her just a little. She can maybe get a little. Get this off.
- Right. You should see the bee crawl out. Now, they live how long? How long does a worker bee live? There
- she comes. Oh, yeah. There she comes.
- How long does a worker bee live? Well, it's been 21 days since the egg was laid. Right. She's hatching
- out in 21 days. And this time of year, they'll live, say, six weeks. There you see a bee born. Right.
- Fantastic. Now, what will that bee go and do now? Will it just eat for a while? That bee will get around,
- get something to eat, and a few days it will start helping feed the larvae.
- Right. Now, after she spends, say, two weeks helping feed larvae, she will start out. Here's another
- one coming out. She will start out gathering nectar. All right. Now, I notice the bees are clustered
- around the rim of the frame. Why is that? That's where the honey is. I see. They're gorging with honey.
- They put the honey on the outside and the brood on the inside. That's right. They got the honey here
- convenient.
- It takes honey to feed the bees. It takes more than honey. Honey has no protein. You have to have protein
- to raise young. Even older people need some protein, too. And the bees get their protein from the pollen.
- Here, they've stored pollen. Around the edge of this, there's pollen stored. I see. And that's called
- bee bread, isn't it? Bee bread, some people call it. Or it's pollen.
- Right. Come here, Ann, I'll give you a bite of pollen. Come on, Bessie, get a bite. Oh, come on. You
- want to help me? Just take a little nibble there, Ann. Take your finger and take that off of there.
- Taste it. People pay several dollars. Now you can walk back out of the bees. People pay several dollars
- a pound for that pollen. Yeah, that's right. You can put on a pollen trap and collect that and eat pollen,
- sell pollen. It is rich in protein. Right.
- Right. Now these cells, they look like they're empty. I see. Now why is that? Most of these cells. But
- when I look in them, I see eggs in some cells. Oh. Very small. Just big enough with my bifolks I can
- see them. Some of them I see larvae. Which means? Not much bigger than these eggs. Some of them have
- a little larger larvae. That's a little worm in there. Which means what? These bees feed that larvae
- continually. Yeah feed it what honey and pollen? Use a little water they use a little water in there.
- Right. Mixing up the feed. Sure. Oops you're gonna get some there on your shirt. And this found a sheet
- of foundation a sheet of wax is put in the middle to start this comb. Right. These build out this way
- and they build out in this side so you can see the two sides are very much alike. Can you tell now does
- this hive have a good working queen?
- Well, I can tell better if I get a clomhorchol seal, but I can also tell by looking closely. Every cell
- there has an egg or a pollen in it. I see. And when they're filling every cell, that indicates the queen
- is all right. That's good. But I looked through a few more here. I'll find some that have more cells
- kept. OK. All right. Can you see this bee here? Let me see. This one has a load of pollen on each side.
- They carry pollen on their legs. Here's another one. One right here. Oh, yeah. OK. Here's another one
- with pollen. See, they're bringing in pollen day. It's a good day to collect pollen. Uh-huh. Maybe one
- will crawl up here on my hive tool with a load of pollen. Not going to do it. They go the other way.
- Yeah. That one flew off. But there's bees coming in all the time with pollen.
- There's one with pollen on each side. They're nectar. The nectar to make honey is carried in an extra
- stomach they have. They have a nectar sack. Oh. There you see the loads of pollen on his legs. Look
- at it kick. Look at it turn that stinger up. If I could get your finger, you'd lose me. And you want
- the bee. Take a good look at it. Can you see that pollen?
- Yeah, that's good, yeah. Now where does he get this pollen? Does that come off the flowers or? This
- pollen comes from the flowers. This yellow pollen this time of year. I don't know. Now that's the color
- they get off a dandelion when dandelions are blooming. Of course there's not many dandelions blooming
- now. Might mention the most important thing for bees, the most important thing they do for us. Of course
- they make honey. That's the sweetest thing they do. Yeah. But the most important work of bees
- is to pollinate plants for us. All right. This is zucchini time of year. They're just coming on. Uh-huh.
- You can't raise zucchinis without bees. Well, you see, my daddy, he has bees, has zucchinis, and he
- raises zucchinis. He doesn't have bees. Sure you can if you don't have bees. But your neighbors have
- bees. Somebody around you has bees. Somewhere a half a mile, someone a mile, or someone within two miles
- away has bees.
- early in the morning the sun comes up those bees find that zucchini patch and they carry the pollen
- from the male flowers to the female flowers and pollinate them I raise zucchinis the female flowers
- were blooming two weeks ago and those zucchinis they just shriveled up and died the zucchini part because
- there were no male flowers to get pollinated
- Well after a week's time the male flowers bloom out in this variety I have and every zucchini that comes
- out and blooms grows and makes a big zucchini. They get pollinated by the bees. You can't raise them
- without bees. You ever see the big red apples? Red delicious apples. You can't grow them without bees.
- When the people went to the state of Washington they found that a good place to grow apples. They set out
- Red delicious apple trees, acres and acres of them. And those trees bloomed and no apples. Next year,
- they bloomed and no apples. Here in Indiana, they put out red delicious and they always bore apples.
- Well, they found out that red delicious has to be pollinated by some other variety. They cut down a
- delicious tree here, down here ways, cut down down and planted other varieties.
- and brought in bees and they grew the big red delicious apples you see. Right. They grow them out there
- by the hundreds of acres but there's other varieties mixed in and they got along just fine for many
- years. DDT was outlawed and they started using I believe seven to spray their sweet corn. They grow
- sweet corn in the same area and when they started using seven
- spraying that sweet corn every week. When that touches a bee, it kills it right then. And they sprayed
- them this week and killed every bee that was out flying over the fields. The next week they sprayed
- again, killed every bee that was out. And the next week, and they had corn planted at different times,
- say a week or two weeks apart, so there was a spring there, a good part of the summer.
- And by the time the summer was over, the bees were all gone, all killed. And the people came time with
- the apples to bloom. No bees to pollinate them. They hauled bees for 1,000 and more than 1,000 miles
- to those apple orchards to pollinate their apples. Right. That cost them. Got apples. Another thing,
- almonds. In the bee magazines, they advertise for bees in California.
- Bring your bees out in January to pollinate our almonds. They will pay, oh, $20 more or less for each
- hive of bees. You move into their almond groves to pollinate their almonds. Here in this country, your
- clover seed, you have a field of clover and want to get a seed crop, you must have bees there.
- And up in the northern part of the state, especially in Michigan, where they grow more apples, they
- pay to have bees moved in there or else keep bees in their orchards. I see. Now around this part of
- the country, there's more bees than apples, so you don't have to be concerned about who's going to pollinate
- your apples. Right. Now you say... Blueberries, they're blueberries. They move in bees, pay to have
- bees moved in their blueberry orchards.
- What about the corn and crops like that? Do they have to be pollinated or does the wind do that well
- enough? Corn has a dry, powdery pollen that the wind will carry it. I see. Apples have a sticky pollen
- that cannot be carried by the wind. Zucchini pollen cannot be carried by the wind. But grasses, corn,
- many things have a pollen that the wind will carry from one plant to the other and requires no bees.
- But the bees will work on
- corn tassels to get the pollen to bring in to help feed the larvae. And they store larvae so that next
- spring they will have the pollen to raise bees before it blossoms. Why are those bees there hanging
- on the side of the frame? Oh, they're just clustering, nothing to do, and they're away from the hive
- and they're lost. They're lost. I see.
- OK. Well, could you continue going through there and explaining what you see? And we'll just follow
- along for a few more minutes here. Now, I notice you have only a bee veil on there. Do you just not
- worry about bee stings anymore? If I had a mean colony of bees, I would probably put my sleeves down. Yeah.
- These aren't stingers. Right. Of course, I can change my mind any time about them. They start stinging.
- Yeah. Right. Well, I've noticed here lately they've been pretty calm when I've gone in. And I suppose
- it's the way you handle them also. Well, the weather, this is a bad day to work from. This is a good
- day to get them to sting. Right. Because they're unhappy with the rainy weather. Right. You see, this
- hive has quite a bit of honey. This lighter colored is honey.
- Here's more. Is there any brood in that one? These bees are kept over that's called brood. Now if I
- go the other direction I'll probably find a better frame with brood. Of course we have two high bodies.
- We probably find more brood in the bottom one. Yeah you will. And the honey in this top one. Yeah I've
- noticed they get very aggressive when I go into that bottom frame.
- That bottom high body. Oh boy, that's a good one. This one's full. Now this has larva, a little larger
- larva. These eggs were laid a few days before the first frame I took out. And over here I hope to find
- one that has a lot of capped larva, maybe not more than the first one. I think you'll probably find
- the majority of the capped, well I don't know, you might find it in there too, but in the bottom high
- body is where I've been
- This still just about all larvae. They look empty from the distance, but get up close. She's a good
- one. Oh, I see her. Oh. You want to see a queen? Yes. Oh, my, yes. Let's, uh. Well, I will show you
- a queen. I didn't expect to find a queen that easily. She won't fly off of there, was she? She better
- not. Tell me where she is. Right here. Yeah. See, she's a little bigger than the other bees. She's a
- different color. Find her out again. Now she's going through the other side.
- Uh oh. We'll turn around and hope she made it over here. There she is. Yeah. Where? Right there.
- There she is. Point her out there with you. Point her out, Ann. I've got... Your finger points her out
- there. Oh, there she is. Yeah. See her turn around? Uh-huh. Usually more bees cluster around her and
- hard to see her, but... She's a good one there, huh? Now, if she isn't too excited, she'd find an empty
- cell. She would back down into that cell, back into it,
- and deposit an egg in the bottom. But all of these have eggs in them that I can see. That is beeswax.
- They just built down there in some empty space they had. But there is a queen. She's a nice one. Well,
- that's good. I'm glad we got to find her. You say you think they swarmed. If they swarmed, that would
- mean she's a young one. And she looks like a young one. I believe they did swarm. I really do. They get old.
- Their wings get a little tattered and a little different. How long do queen bees live? Queen bee will
- live for two or three years. Two, three, four years. Oh, I see. Where these bees live for six weeks
- this time of year. Now the ones that hatch in October, they will live through November, December, January, February,
- Maybe March. Because they're not active, right? They'll live for five or six months. Some say they're
- a little different to kind of be fed differently. I don't know. But this queen will stop laying and
- say November. She says, well, they know what's the use to raise a lot of bees in November when there's
- no nectar in December, none in January, none in February. But as soon as the days start getting longer
- in January,
- That microphone down there. I don't know if it'll pick you up. That's okay. Just go ahead and no no
- no just I was gonna clip it on That's an interesting question about how they make another queen yes,
- that's a good one see these eggs in here These eggs are fertilized eggs Which means what any egg in
- there can be grown into queen? Oh?
- If you lost this queen and dropped her out here, they'd look around the hive. They'd say, wait, we don't
- have a queen. We don't have a queen. We got to raise a queen. They can take one of these small larvae
- here and grow it into a queen. They will build a bigger cell. They will feed it differently. And that
- difference in feed makes the difference in length of life we mentioned a while ago. They feed the queen
- royal jelly.
- royal jelly and instead of living six weeks she will live two years three years by being fed this young
- this royal jelly when she's growing up that shows the importance in the food you eat now another reason
- I might say that indicates this is sworn I only see worker bees and one queen and no oh yeah I do see
- one very few
- I saw a drone out here on the ground. Very few drones. The drones are the male bees. Here, Ann, now
- you take this one. If it stings you, I got a $5 bill. You don't want to earn $5. It won't sting, Ann.
- Get the one on the hive, too. It won't sting. Come here. Come here, Betsy. It won't sting. Show them
- how much braver Mother is. It won't sting, Mother. Take it any way. You don't have to be careful. Now
- step back with it. You have a drone.
- be there in your hand. They don't sting. Why do they not sting? They have no stinger. That's right.
- You can play with them. They only have one purpose and that is to mate with a young queen when they
- raise a young queen. And the other time all they do is eat, right? All they do is eat. He doesn't fly
- either. They fly. They come out every day. Mother, you be careful there. Oh, get back there. I'll keep
- him, Mother. Just keep him.
- come out and fly sun shining nice day yeah they fly around there you go yeah there he flew there he
- flew I thought you said they didn't fly well I guess they do they come out in the middle of the day
- they have a flight they just but I've got to get this queen out flew around yeah you better go back
- there with her queen she's a six dollars worth that's right that's right go put her back she's my queen
- yeah she's worth six or more even up to seven and eight dollars yeah only if it's a fertilized egg well
- a queen when she mates is fertilized and she lays fertilized eggs she mates with a drone and then she
- is inseminated like a woman
- if it's fed the proper food. All eggs are the same when she lays them. Yeah. It just depends on the
- food that she's fed. Now, why are all these bees are flying around like this? Well, we're getting them
- kind of disturbed. Well, they attack. And now, there are a lot of movies out, you know, with killer
- bees and swarms and all. Will these bees just come out en masse and attack you or someone else around?
- If these were killer bees, so-called African bees,
- You would not be standing out there talking about them. You wouldn't be any ways near. Is that just
- because they have a bad temper? They have a much worse temper than these bees. I see. I might say that
- these are Italian bees. Right, right. They originated in Italy.
- They were brought over from Italy several years ago. Right. We also have Caucasian bees. What's the
- difference in the kind of bees? Little difference in color. Some of them swarm more than others. Are
- Italian bees generally the best kind of bee to have? Most of the bees in this country are Italian bees.
- We've got to get this hive back together. They're getting stirred up quite a bit. Yeah. Now, how much...
- Uh-oh, there's smokers out there just about... Now, how long did you say it would be before maybe one
- of those supers is filled up? Might be quite a while. Might not get filled up this summer. That's right.
- It depends on
- Availability of nectar. Right. Now, assuming one did get filled up, could I rob them? That is, could
- I take that and extract that honey with no fear of them dying of starvation? Or should I go ahead and
- leave that super on there for them to eat this winter? They would probably have enough honey in these
- two hide bodies. Safer if you have two hide bodies in the super. Then you don't have to be concerned
- about them.
- You'll have plenty of food. Right. Now, honey will not promote bacteria, will it? No, bacteria won't
- live in honey. Now, that's just a chemical property of the honey itself, right? That's right. And then
- get one frame down here. It may have come off the edge. Oh, OK.
- Are those African bees, are they especially good honey makers? I've heard that they are really good
- honey makers. Is that true? Not for two or three reasons. One reason, they build up, get enough bees
- to make honey, they swarm. They are great swarmers. Really? Yeah. Yeah, they... There we got them back.
- Okay. You can put the rest of those... Not a good idea to leave them open too long. Right.