Moving Wax Around the Hive with Dave Wade (390)

WEBVTT

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Hello, this is Nathan Keach.

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I'm from Kentucky.

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I have 13 colonies and welcome to Beekeeping Today.

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Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment.

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I'm Jeff Ott.

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And I'm

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Becky Masterman.

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Today's episode is brought to you by the bee nutrition superheroes at Global Patties.

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Thank you, Nathan Keach, for that great opening from the floor of the North American Honey Bee Expo back in January.

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It was a lifetime ago.

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Seems like it.

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It seems like it.

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Well, thank you, Nathan, for helping us kick off today's exciting episode.

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Becky, it is definitely

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We're into the season.

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No more thinking about it.

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We're doing it.

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How are your bees?

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The bees are looking really good.

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I just thought of something though.

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The North American Honey Bee Expo where so many bee keepers get

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So much equipment.

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I bet it's all on the colonies by now, right?

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Yeah, it's definitely.

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So everything that I've purchased this year is

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It's been put out and so it's ki it's kind of fun.

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All all of us are trying new honey supers or new varroa control or new frames, new new foundation.

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New boxes, all sorts of fun stuff.

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we've got what seven six months to the next expo where we stock up on equipment to use again in January.

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Start making that list now.

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Well that's good.

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So yeah.

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Yeah.

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Your bees good?

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yeah, I just it seems like the swarming season just never ends.

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So I will be honest with you.

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We're recording this a couple weeks earlier than it's released.

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Twenty minutes before we started recording.

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Yeah, I got another swarm.

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So it's just like, what I can't leave now.

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So you know, couple of thoughts.

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A lot of times if you even if you're you know trying to prevent swarming but you still have the problem, a lot of times what it it indicates you've got a really, really great nectar flow.

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Which is probably what happens.

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Also, I mean, I wonder if you should look at different lines of bees that might be a little less prone to swarming.

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Like Caucasians supposedly are a little bit

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less prone to swarming because of their buildup.

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Yeah, and these are have been overwintered colonies that I've been having issues, obviously overwintered colonies.

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And they're all carniolens.

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Oh, I've got something to tell you about that.

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Oh yeah?

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I was literally just talking to a queen producer about it and swarming and he said, I have no data, but I totally trust people who manage thousands of colonies.

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But he said

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Second year carnival and queens seem to be a little bit faster on pulling the trigger and swarming.

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So is do you have data on that for me

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Yeah, I will give you a second data point on that.

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But I thought that was interesting because we we were oh I was talking I was telling you about a colony.

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They haven't s swarmed, but they definitely just

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built up and filled out and caught me by surprise.

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And we were talking about that.

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And he just mentioned it's just those little fun, fun things that are based on lots of experience.

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So second year cardio in Queens

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Maybe that's your problem.

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Oh, I can guarantee you that's part of the problem.

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I think I'm gonna do some requeening mid season or just after the honey flow and

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You start getting them ready for the fall.

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I have one really defensive colony that based on the location they are at at a family farm area.

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They're not around the playground, but you know you don't want to have anyways, yeah.

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Requeened.

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I know this is probably not what you were trying to do, but what I do with the defensive colony is I will break it down into five nucs.

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So too small to have a big defensive force and then they're easier to requeen.

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Oh, that's a good idea.

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Then you get to have more colonies.

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So yay.

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Yay, more colonies?

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The joys of midsummer, mid season, beekeeping.

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It's always something in it.

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Well, I think maybe one of us is having more fun than the other.

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Yeah.

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Jeff, we have another question for the Hive IQ Hive Tool, and I need you to answer it.

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Okay, I'll try.

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So, I mean it says hi Becky and Jeff, but let's just pretend it says hi Jeff.

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It says I use oxalic acid vapor

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Mold vaporization in my apiary and understand the importance of a properly fitted respirator with the correct cartridges for organic vapors and particulates.

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He goes on to ask, how often should the cartridges be replaced?

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What are the replacement schedules

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And is there a recommended interval for replacing these filters when used for oxalic acid vaporization at what signs indicate it's time to replace them?

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Well, I hope we don't get to those signs 'cause that's scary.

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Yeah.

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Well, and that's from who?

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And this is from Ed.

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Ed Chen in Buzz Riot Apiaries in Irvington, New York.

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What a fun

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Oh my gosh.

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Have you seen the logo?

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Yeah it's Buzz Riot Apearies?

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That's a that's a wild board.

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Already like

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I already like Ed.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I have to ask him what kind of if if he plays.

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It's a bee with a guitar.

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It is a bee with a guitar.

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And quite the hairdo.

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Okay.

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So Jeff, how can you help Ed?

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And and keep Ed safe and maybe some other listeners

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Yeah.

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Well that's an important question because when you're using the vaporization, you don't want to inhale it.

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oxalic acid powder, you can touch it, it's not gonna burn you.

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It's when it

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hits the wetness that it turns to an acid and it can burn you.

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And when you vaporize it it turns into the nanocrystals or s really small crystals of oxalic acid and then and you breathe it in into your lungs and into your mucous membranes.

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And anybody who's worked with OAV oxalic acid vapor will tell you that if you take off your mask too soon, you breathe it in, it's not a very pleasant feeling.

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I have a friend who told me that.

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I but I bet you have a friend.

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Okay.

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So so yeah, really good question.

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He included the 3M respirator that he uses in the cartridges and which happens to be the exact same

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Respirator and cartridges I use.

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You do want to replace those organic filters on a regular basis

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I went to the 3M website and did some other research on the internet and for oxalic acid where it's not like a paint.

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What you're really protecting yourself against is the really small particles, what they call a P100 size filter.

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And it removes those particles before they can embed in your lung those little particles of oxalic acid.

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The recommendations is to set a schedule you can do once a year at the end of every season, throw away the cartridge, and then say in January or February put a new cartridge on.

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Technically, you could use it several seasons, but what happens is with these cartridges, the organic part of that cartridge starts to break down and you really don't know it.

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So you want to

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Just replace it on a regular basis and you'll be fine.

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It's the obvious signs like breathing through it and it's hard to draw air, then that's probably a good sign that you need to replace it.

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So Ed once a year.

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I would do it once a year, unless you're doing a lot of OA vaporization in like on a commercial scale, then I would recommend even twice a year.

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And before we close this off, Becky, I do want to correct what I said earlier in this because I don't want to re-record this entire conversation.

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is that I casually said that you can touch oxalic acid powder and obviously you don't want to play with oxalic acid powder.

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You want to wear nitrile gloves

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Latex gloves when you're working with any of these chemicals in and around the bee yard or A, even in your shop.

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Your skin has moisture on it

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it will react with the OA and cause skin irritation, might burn you.

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And especially you don't want to get it into any cracks in your skin.

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That would be painful as well

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So, best bet, always wear protective gear with the oxalic acid.

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Wear eye protection, make sure you don't get it in your eye, and make sure you use a respirator, make sure you don't inhale the vapor or the powder dust.

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So basically be afraid, be very afraid.

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It's it's not something to play with.

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That's well said.

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One of the joys of swarming season is

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watching colonies build out the frames and and build wax.

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And that's one of the things in y you think about it and you think how all the bees hang chain together and and pull the wax flakes and build the beautiful comb.

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But you know, a lot of times they reuse wax.

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Our next guest has some fun experience with this.

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My favorite is

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when you find a frame of brood, sealed worker brood, and you can just see a rainbow of actual capping color.

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And it's just it just

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goes to show you that yes, they are reusing it and yes, it does change color over time.

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So I'm excited to s talk to somebody though who actually

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Puts a little effort into learning more about it.

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So Today's guest is David Wade, and we'll be talking to him right after these words from our sponsors.

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Hey everybody, welcome back.

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Sitting around this great big virtual beekeeping today podcast table stretching from coast to coast, really.

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In Sturbridge, Massachusetts, we have Dave Wade in Minnesota.

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We have Becky and I'm, of course, I'm in Olympia, Washington.

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Dave, welcome to the show.

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Nice to be here today.

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Thank you for having me.

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Thanks so much for taking time during the beekeeping season to join us.

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Dave, we invited you here today to talk about some of the experiments you're doing as a hobbyist beekeeper with how bees move wax around the colony.

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And that's really fascinating what you're doing

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But before we get down into that, tell us a little bit about yourself, about your beekeeping, how you got interested in bees and

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And then we'll go from there.

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Certainly.

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Central Massachusetts, rural area.

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The I'd have to say I got into it.

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We have fruit trees in the backyard.

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My wife noticed we weren't getting many apples.

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She looked into it and said, Hey, it's a pollinator issue.

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And this was twenty years ago.

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Pollinator issue.

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So what do you do?

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You take care of it.

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My wife looked it up

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The local county beekeeper association here, Worcester County Beekeeper Association.

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They of course have a B-School.

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She signed me up for bee School.

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And of course she came back and said she kinda laughed at me when I got home, Dave, were there twenty people there?

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I'm like, no, Christine, there were about there were about two hundred people there.

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Was it even even twenty years ago?

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A lot of people, big interest.

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Worcester County is the biggest county here in Massachusetts.

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I've since become a board member.

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We have the oldest one of the oldest county beekeeper associations in the country.

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We celebrated 125 years last year

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Hobby beekeeper.

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And Jeff, when you mentioned bees move wax around, my what I've been doing is providing them with wax, which we'll talk further about, giving them supplemental wax, just no different than we

00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:50.000
feed supplements now in our food for the bees.

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I supplement with wax.

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And the beautiful thing is I'm not a scientist.

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I have no scientific background.

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When I give my presentations and

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Done it all over New England and a number of them, Zoom meetings, presentations.

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I tell people, you, you can do this.

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Not no scientific background.

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Everything you see simple, may take a little bit of work.

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But you can do it.

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And I usually have anywhere from six, seven hives.

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It's usually d and I'm in Massachusetts.

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We always have that challenge of getting through the winter, getting through the cold months

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And I'm getting better at it, I have to say, either better and more lucky.

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I did w I went into the winter with not ten hives, came out with nine, which was beautiful.

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The problem the downside of that is I'm doing experiments, I'm buying packages, I'm up and put get catching swarms, I'm up to twelve now.

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I work for a living.

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It's obviously difficult to

00:14:39.360 --> 00:14:40.640
keep up with the hives.

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It definitely keeps me busy.

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I'm doing my experiments.

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It is definitely motivational when I go to the conferences and such and people know what I'm doing.

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People are following me and actually using the methods that I've tried.

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I go up people come up to me and say, Dave, I tried this, it worked for me.

00:14:55.600 --> 00:15:00.240
I was shudder shudder when I when somebody comes up to me thinking, Oh, I tried and it didn't work.

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Nope.

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Most times they say, Yes, I tried it and it worked.

00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:04.000
It was a game saver

00:15:04.220 --> 00:15:05.180
Beautiful.

00:15:05.180 --> 00:15:10.620
What was the problem that you had that you needed to solve when you started working with Wax?

00:15:10.620 --> 00:15:12.700
What problem were you trying to solve?

00:15:12.459 --> 00:15:17.260
Yeah, I would say it wasn't didn't start out as a problem, it started out as an observation.

00:15:17.260 --> 00:15:26.140
Observation and since I started giving these talks, I noticed a lot of people, I'd have set up to say more than fifty percent, are using plastic foundation

00:15:26.140 --> 00:15:29.740
you don't r y see it as easily as you do if you use wax foundation.

00:15:29.740 --> 00:15:32.060
I use wax foundation in my hives.

00:15:32.060 --> 00:15:34.380
And what you see is on the bottom of the frame

00:15:34.640 --> 00:15:35.600
wax is missing.

00:15:35.600 --> 00:15:43.360
As you go through the season, the bottom of the frame the bottom of the frame, whether it be a brood frame, a honey frame, you may see wit missing wax.

00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:47.600
The bees, when I'd have to say one of the first things I figured out

00:15:47.940 --> 00:15:48.580
cappings.

00:15:48.580 --> 00:15:52.580
I was putting my cappings on the inner cover after I strained out the honey.

00:15:52.580 --> 00:15:55.380
And I would notice the bees did work the wax a little.

00:15:55.380 --> 00:15:56.580
They usually made a mess up there.

00:15:56.580 --> 00:16:00.580
These if you left it too long they might actually start storing honey up there.

00:16:00.880 --> 00:16:06.080
And I had a another issue, another experiment I would say, with a mentee of mine.

00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:09.520
She had a plastic she had plastic foundation, new beekeeper.

00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:11.680
She couldn't get the bees to go up into the second super.

00:16:11.680 --> 00:16:13.680
I know a lot of people have issues with that

00:16:13.480 --> 00:16:15.560
Especially if you don't roll any extra wax on.

00:16:15.560 --> 00:16:17.000
Couldn't get the bees to go up.

00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:21.080
What I tried with her hives, she didn't have any wax foundation, of course.

00:16:21.080 --> 00:16:25.080
I brought some over, ripped it up, and put it kind of on the tops of the frames

00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:27.240
basically giving the bees what they needed.

00:16:27.240 --> 00:16:30.200
If they're not producing it, I give the bees the wax.

00:16:30.200 --> 00:16:36.920
The other thing I learned is that the female honey bee she'll produce that wax from about 12 to 18 days old.

00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:40.440
she has four four pairs of wax glands on her abdomen.

00:16:40.440 --> 00:16:48.199
The big deal with it is she only produces up until about the my mentor used to always tell me, Dave, after the fourth of July you're not gonna get much cone belt out.

00:16:48.199 --> 00:16:50.360
The bees don't really produce the wax.

00:16:50.420 --> 00:16:54.100
In my collaboration since I discovered this, Dr.

00:16:54.100 --> 00:16:55.940
David Tarp he's been great.

00:16:55.940 --> 00:16:58.660
He had me on his YouTube channel over a year ago.

00:16:58.640 --> 00:17:06.800
He was saying that they use the summer solstice as the cutoff period where the bees really slow down, stop producing that wax.

00:17:06.800 --> 00:17:08.160
So it was one of those things

00:17:08.360 --> 00:17:09.159
What do you do?

00:17:09.159 --> 00:17:11.639
Here I am in Massachusetts, a cold climate.

00:17:11.639 --> 00:17:16.120
We have basically three months, April, May, June, to get all your comb built out.

00:17:16.120 --> 00:17:20.360
How do you get the bees to build out cumb comb July, August, September?

00:17:20.140 --> 00:17:23.339
It's simple concept I'd have to say afterwards.

00:17:23.339 --> 00:17:25.420
No different than you building a shed or something.

00:17:25.420 --> 00:17:26.220
You run out of wood.

00:17:26.220 --> 00:17:26.780
What do you do?

00:17:26.780 --> 00:17:27.660
You get all wood.

00:17:27.660 --> 00:17:29.340
The bees aren't producing that wax.

00:17:29.340 --> 00:17:29.900
What do you do?

00:17:29.900 --> 00:17:30.860
You give it to them.

00:17:30.860 --> 00:17:32.620
And then it was a hit or miss.

00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:33.260
It was a

00:17:33.419 --> 00:17:35.740
experiment, give it to them where they need it.

00:17:35.740 --> 00:17:41.419
Eventually I figured out how much wax to give them and give it give it to them on the inside of the frame.

00:17:41.419 --> 00:17:44.299
If you keep it on the inside of the frame, they used it.

00:17:44.299 --> 00:17:48.059
When I had that Mentee when I put it on top of the frames,

00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:50.780
They chewed it, they manipulated it, but they kept it on there.

00:17:50.780 --> 00:17:54.460
It really is crazy that they have to have it like within the frame.

00:17:54.460 --> 00:17:57.100
And what form are you leav giving them the wax?

00:17:57.100 --> 00:17:57.740
Are you using

00:17:58.040 --> 00:18:02.520
rolled foundation or are you giving them, you know, the one ounce, eight ounce blocks of wax?

00:18:02.520 --> 00:18:05.480
How are you providing wax to the bees to work with?

00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:07.720
I gave them what I had at that point.

00:18:07.560 --> 00:18:10.120
which was basically I use nothing but mediums.

00:18:10.120 --> 00:18:13.720
I had medium foundation with the support wires.

00:18:13.720 --> 00:18:16.200
I basically pulled out the support wires.

00:18:16.200 --> 00:18:18.120
It gave me what I call a slice of wax.

00:18:18.120 --> 00:18:21.080
It's about an inch and three inch inch and three quarters wide

00:18:21.040 --> 00:18:24.640
I basically took that and I call it a roll, but it was it's hard to roll up.

00:18:24.640 --> 00:18:28.240
If you ever try to make candles, it's hard to get that roll started.

00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:29.440
I basically

00:18:29.560 --> 00:18:30.280
Fold ink.

00:18:30.440 --> 00:18:31.800
First of all, he folded it.

00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:33.560
I basically fold it twice.

00:18:33.560 --> 00:18:35.320
And then insert that.

00:18:35.320 --> 00:18:36.760
Put that on the inside of the

00:18:37.060 --> 00:18:38.900
inside of the frame and that's what they were using.

00:18:38.900 --> 00:18:42.580
A block of wax, I don't think the bees the mandibles can manipulate that wax.

00:18:42.580 --> 00:18:46.980
You it would be beautiful if we could just put a block of wax in there in the hive and the bees would use it.

00:18:46.980 --> 00:18:48.420
It's not that easy.

00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:51.360
It's about placement and eventually I figured out volume.

00:18:51.360 --> 00:18:56.640
At first I was using one of those slices of wax around the whole inside perimeter of the frame.

00:18:56.640 --> 00:18:58.160
When they built it out, it was beautiful.

00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:00.400
A week later I went in and like wow.

00:19:00.160 --> 00:19:01.120
How did the bees do this?

00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:03.920
How did we we never knew the bees could do something like that.

00:19:03.920 --> 00:19:06.640
We add wax, we figure the bees are gonna make a mess.

00:19:06.640 --> 00:19:12.960
They built it out beautifully, the cone, but the depth of those cells were only about halfway out.

00:19:12.760 --> 00:19:14.840
So I figured out, okay, volume.

00:19:14.840 --> 00:19:16.280
I needed to add more wax.

00:19:16.280 --> 00:19:21.240
It was basically two slices of those wax rolls along the whole inside perimeter.

00:19:21.240 --> 00:19:27.559
What I'm working on now, this year, is plastic frames one, across plastic foundation.

00:19:26.860 --> 00:19:29.580
and I'm trying to use whole sheets of wax.

00:19:29.580 --> 00:19:39.100
That's a little bit more of a challenge because if you have the rolls too too large and they actually touch one another, picture picture inside of your hive

00:19:38.980 --> 00:19:40.820
Langstroth hide with the frames.

00:19:40.820 --> 00:19:44.180
The frames are pretty close together to to maintain that bee space.

00:19:44.180 --> 00:19:50.180
If you create too much space, which I did have to pull out a frame or two to t to fit all these in there.

00:19:49.880 --> 00:19:55.640
the bees kind of weld the wax together on the top and then they build that funky comb hanging down from there.

00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.840
So now I'm working on making the rolls small enough which

00:19:59.060 --> 00:20:07.860
I figured out I'm doing more of an oval than I am a circle, because you can make the with the volume of wax, you can roll it up in an oval, which doesn't take as much room sticking out.

00:20:07.860 --> 00:20:09.940
That is what I'm working on right now.

00:20:09.840 --> 00:20:13.280
Where within the colony are you placing these frames?

00:20:13.600 --> 00:20:19.120
I did find that when I first did this experiment was in August, back in 2024.

00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:28.680
The bees that time of year, August, July, August, September, a major when you go in your hives, majority of your bees are down low, down in the brood chambers.

00:20:28.460 --> 00:20:33.820
Up above you have your honey f honey supers, you get bees coming in exchanging the nectar.

00:20:33.820 --> 00:20:35.580
Not much activity up there

00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:47.440
The lower you go down, what I did in the 2024 experiments really was placing frames with the wax rolls right directly either in the brew chambers, which is beautiful and use nothing but mediums.

00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:49.680
You can move your versatility, it's great

00:20:49.740 --> 00:20:51.820
or right above the brood chambers.

00:20:51.820 --> 00:20:53.180
That was the best place.

00:20:53.180 --> 00:21:04.460
Just like when you have a t I use eight but if you had a ten frame hive, if you put those frames on the outside, the one, two, nine, ten place, just when you build just when you're starting out a new colony.

00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:07.360
those spots are last for the bees to build out.

00:21:07.360 --> 00:21:12.320
Center of the hive, towards the bottom, near the brood, and you'll see also if you follow my

00:21:13.019 --> 00:21:13.659
presentations.

00:21:13.899 --> 00:21:15.740
ABF has a good one if you remember.

00:21:15.740 --> 00:21:17.659
Just recorded it last March.

00:21:17.659 --> 00:21:21.419
The I did a whole experiment last spring which worked out well.

00:21:21.419 --> 00:21:23.100
I took two hives control

00:21:23.740 --> 00:21:27.420
Where I just put the single sheet of wax foundation in the middle.

00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:34.700
I did two, every other frame received wax rolls, and then I did two other hives where every single

00:21:35.400 --> 00:21:37.000
hive, every single frame.

00:21:37.000 --> 00:21:40.040
Whenever I added supers had wax rolls.

00:21:40.040 --> 00:21:49.960
My hypothesis was that providing that a spring package with that extra wax is going to build out the colony faster, stronger, ended up with more bees in those hives.

00:21:49.840 --> 00:21:53.919
more honey and the bees definitely took off using that wax.

00:21:53.919 --> 00:21:56.240
Okay, and then let's get back to wax rules.

00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:58.320
Those you are taking from your

00:21:58.860 --> 00:22:03.820
beeswax foundation frames and you're cutting in between the wires.

00:22:03.820 --> 00:22:06.059
Yeah, that I wouldn't say cutting Becky.

00:22:06.220 --> 00:22:07.659
The if you when you buy the

00:22:08.220 --> 00:22:16.860
The sheets, most of unless you're doing cut comb wax foundation where there are no wires, they most of and I've been getting mine from different companies.

00:22:17.040 --> 00:22:18.560
The why the wire is easy enough.

00:22:18.640 --> 00:22:19.360
There's one direction.

00:22:19.360 --> 00:22:21.360
My my twenty-three-year-old son figured it out.

00:22:21.360 --> 00:22:23.520
I had it course but put my kids to work.

00:22:23.520 --> 00:22:27.360
The you basically if you pull out the wire, it makes it so you just like

00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:32.440
perforation where you can break the sheets apart and they are about an inch and three quarter inch wide.

00:22:32.440 --> 00:22:40.840
So picture the inch and three quarter plus whatever the medium frame is five and six sixteenth or five and a quarter whatever it is for height

00:22:40.840 --> 00:22:44.039
And but like you said, now I'm trying to do whole sheets.

00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:46.679
It maybe not the full medium.

00:22:46.679 --> 00:22:47.960
You may have to cut off an inch.

00:22:47.960 --> 00:22:51.799
I think I had an inch and a half of them doing mediums, I'm still working off the math.

00:22:51.360 --> 00:22:56.639
It's one of those things though, when I did this in 2024, I did weigh the frames.

00:22:56.639 --> 00:23:01.679
I weighed the frames that I was putting the wax on, how much wax I was adding in the regular

00:23:01.940 --> 00:23:03.940
typical frame that the bees built out.

00:23:03.940 --> 00:23:11.539
Mine are a little bit heavier wax wise, which I tell people I'd rather have a wax rich hive than a wax poor hive because the

00:23:11.840 --> 00:23:19.679
when I did that experiment with the six hives, the two that I add kept adding the wax rules to, you didn't have any of that space along the bottom.

00:23:19.679 --> 00:23:23.120
The bees didn't have to steal that wax and move it somewhere else.

00:23:22.960 --> 00:23:36.480
Michael Smith down at Auburn University, I've been collaborating with him also, he sent me to a research paper that one of his graduate students did back in 2021 on comb comb reduction, comb reduction research paper.

00:23:36.340 --> 00:23:41.940
He basically the research the graduate student tracked it, tracked comb building over season.

00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:43.860
Top Bar Style Hive

00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:45.680
but the bees naturally built it out.

00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:46.960
No no foundation.

00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:51.360
He tracked up until they used he and Smith and Dr.

00:23:51.360 --> 00:23:57.920
Tarpee both used the summer solstice as the cutoff time when the bees typically stop or slow down building

00:23:57.940 --> 00:23:59.460
producing wax.

00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:05.779
And from that research he did figure out that five out of the six of the hives that he was d that he was d working on

00:24:05.860 --> 00:24:08.980
they did slow d slow down, if not stop, building out the comb.

00:24:08.980 --> 00:24:11.539
Then after that he could track it with a camera.

00:24:11.539 --> 00:24:16.179
The wax the end of the comb, the edge of the comb on the bottom got more narrow.

00:24:16.179 --> 00:24:18.980
The bees were stealing the wax off the bottom

00:24:18.779 --> 00:24:19.260
Dr.

00:24:19.260 --> 00:24:24.139
Smith, Michael Smith thought it was the bees taking it and moving it somewhere else, most likely for cappings.

00:24:24.139 --> 00:24:25.419
The bees aren't producing it.

00:24:25.419 --> 00:24:26.539
How do you get cappings?

00:24:26.539 --> 00:24:31.179
You ta they are taking your bees, if you watched your comb, especially later on in the season.

00:24:30.940 --> 00:24:34.700
It the bees are moving that wax when they're not producing it.

00:24:34.700 --> 00:24:35.019
Right.

00:24:35.019 --> 00:24:36.220
We were just talking about that.

00:24:36.220 --> 00:24:42.860
You can see a a rainbow of of actual colors within one root frame if you pay attention.

00:24:42.660 --> 00:24:51.380
Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and we'll be right back and talk to David Wade a little bit more about the movement of blacks throughout the colony.

00:24:53.660 --> 00:24:56.140
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00:26:24.380 --> 00:26:26.299
Welcome back everybody.

00:26:26.299 --> 00:26:34.299
Now Dave you've done some I have to say fun, but some experiments using actual dyed wax

00:26:34.440 --> 00:26:37.880
so that you could really see what the bees are doing.

00:26:37.880 --> 00:26:40.919
Could you talk a little bit about the work you're you've done there?

00:26:40.919 --> 00:26:41.720
Sure, Becky.

00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:44.360
I was just gonna bring that up when you mentioned rainbow.

00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:51.360
The beautiful thing about my club that I belong to, Worcester County Beekeeper Association, we're such a large organization.

00:26:51.360 --> 00:26:53.360
We have over fifteen hundred members that

00:26:53.820 --> 00:26:57.180
We're able my our program manager, Ken Warchell, is great.

00:26:57.180 --> 00:27:01.500
He's able to get big name speakers coming out and giving presentations once a year.

00:27:01.500 --> 00:27:03.500
David Harpey was one of the ones.

00:27:03.640 --> 00:27:08.280
And whenever whenever these speakers come out, I make a point to introduce myself.

00:27:08.280 --> 00:27:09.080
Here's what I'm doing.

00:27:09.080 --> 00:27:10.760
Maybe you've heard about what I've been doing.

00:27:10.760 --> 00:27:16.920
You may have seen one of my articles in American V Journal, whether it be June of twenty-five or April of twenty-sixth.

00:27:16.980 --> 00:27:25.220
And the cool thing was one of the first times after that August 2024 timeframe, I think it was somewhere around December or so, Dr.

00:27:25.220 --> 00:27:28.180
David Tarpy was out from North Carolina State.

00:27:28.040 --> 00:27:29.320
And I brought some life.

00:27:29.320 --> 00:27:32.600
I had my hat laptop actually spoke to him around at lunchtime.

00:27:32.680 --> 00:27:36.120
He took a a great interest in it, which was gr which was perfect

00:27:35.840 --> 00:27:38.559
It was one of those things, me not being a scientist.

00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:40.640
He's like, Dave, I can see it.

00:27:40.640 --> 00:27:44.720
You got all these photos, but as a scientist, we gotta prove it.

00:27:44.360 --> 00:27:50.919
And I mean I have I probably had three, four hundred photos at that time of the bees, me putting the wax roll rolls on there.

00:27:50.919 --> 00:27:57.639
Two days later you could see it missing them from one spot, usually in the middle of the frame, and then you see it being built out in the middle

00:27:57.360 --> 00:27:59.360
He's like, okay, Dave, we have to prove it.

00:27:59.360 --> 00:28:01.519
And so he got to thinking, how do we prove it?

00:28:01.519 --> 00:28:03.679
And he said, well, maybe colored wax.

00:28:03.679 --> 00:28:06.080
I'm like, I don't want to put colored wax in my life.

00:28:06.140 --> 00:28:07.260
I did break down.

00:28:07.260 --> 00:28:09.980
I did I did buy some from Betterbee last fall.

00:28:10.060 --> 00:28:15.500
During one of the one of the meetings, Better P g came out and I bought some red and some blue.

00:28:15.500 --> 00:28:20.860
Cool thing was, and it w cool thing was, and it will be in American Bee General the next time.

00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:25.200
The wax that Betterbee sells is for candles, for making candles.

00:28:25.200 --> 00:28:29.760
It it was a I think it's a it's a deep sheet, obviously without the wires.

00:28:29.640 --> 00:28:32.840
I did put it in over a couple of overwintered hives.

00:28:32.840 --> 00:28:37.240
The red came out beautifully because if I could show you the red red photo sometime.

00:28:37.240 --> 00:28:42.520
I mean it you could see even in the spring hive when the bees are producing a lot of wax, I thought it would come in be

00:28:43.120 --> 00:28:51.280
pink in the middle because the bees would be adding their own wax, you can see it's it's pretty clear that on those medium frames where I added the wax rolls top and bottom.

00:28:51.720 --> 00:28:55.080
It appears that they only used my wax that I put in there.

00:28:55.080 --> 00:28:59.000
Even on the frames next to it on both sides looks pretty cool too.

00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:00.600
You can see a good amount of red there.

00:29:00.600 --> 00:29:03.640
I have some brood frames with this red on top of the brood

00:29:03.760 --> 00:29:06.960
The blue kind of faded out pretty quickly for some reason.

00:29:06.960 --> 00:29:08.720
The red was much more vibrant.

00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:09.919
When I sent that to Dr.

00:29:09.919 --> 00:29:11.679
Tarpey, I think he was happy to see that.

00:29:11.679 --> 00:29:12.160
Dr.

00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:16.640
David Peck was great, but he was happy to see that also because it's showing

00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:17.920
that the bees are moving the wax.

00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:20.880
Even two frames away, you'd see little spots.

00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:23.440
It's telling me how far they're moving the wax.

00:29:23.440 --> 00:29:27.600
The cool thing is I'm gonna do this later on in the season, after that July

00:29:27.760 --> 00:29:30.640
early July time frame when the bees aren't producing wax.

00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:36.720
I want to see how far the bees are taking the wax that I'm providing and moving it to do cappings.

00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:39.840
I wouldn't be surprised if it's two three frames two three

00:29:40.060 --> 00:29:43.420
four frames away, up and up and down and below and next to it.

00:29:43.420 --> 00:29:51.340
The bees I we don't know how much the bees are moving wax around when they're stealing it, but when I'm providing it, but see how much they're doing it.

00:29:51.340 --> 00:29:52.460
I even did a

00:29:53.000 --> 00:30:04.200
experiment late in the season, I want to say October, where I put just the sheets of wax hanging between in up in a honey soup, way up on the top, broke my own rules there, putting it way up where there aren't many bees.

00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:07.559
I wanted to see if they'd use that wax for capping.

00:30:06.980 --> 00:30:10.340
The honey w I don't know if the honey was ready to be capped or not.

00:30:10.340 --> 00:30:12.580
Provided the bees with the sheets.

00:30:12.580 --> 00:30:17.140
And I'm gonna say within a few days you could see a pattern, especially in the middle.

00:30:16.940 --> 00:30:23.500
where the wax was chewed away from the sheet and there it was used for cappings on the honey.

00:30:23.500 --> 00:30:27.580
I still ha I still haven't been able to get an answer from any of the scientists.

00:30:27.340 --> 00:30:36.220
D does it help in a northern climate for moisture, for humidity, if we cap off all the honey in the in the hive going through the winter?

00:30:35.860 --> 00:30:43.779
Because if it does, how simple it is late in the season to just put a few sheets of wax in there, give the bees that wax to do the counting

00:30:44.040 --> 00:30:45.480
Assist in the camping, I should say.

00:30:45.800 --> 00:30:53.400
Let me ask real quick if you can give us a a photo or two that we can put in the show notes on the website and and our listeners can go

00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:12.000
I found that you could I have I when I give my presentation I carry around a a pouch that my wife gave me.

00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:17.840
I will go around during the season with rolls of wax, t small pieces, maybe one of those slices.

00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:23.200
Bottom of the frame missing, I will just insert that roll in there.

00:31:23.200 --> 00:31:25.200
Just push it in, it sticks in there pretty well.

00:31:25.200 --> 00:31:26.799
The base will repair the frame.

00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:29.200
Varrock sand, I used Vrox sand last year.

00:31:29.200 --> 00:31:32.559
Some people had you had an issue if you didn't move the strip.

00:31:32.060 --> 00:31:37.260
The c to maintain bee spees bee space, the bees may have chewed behind the strip.

00:31:37.260 --> 00:31:42.860
I showed actually that's gonna be in the American Bee Journal in July in the letter to the editor.

00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:50.400
Your Eugene Makovich was nice enough to agree to put that in the letter to the editor so people beekeepers by the way can fix that issue.

00:31:50.740 --> 00:31:59.700
Whereas I put a small piece of wax wherever the divot was, we'll call it the gap where the bees chewed it out, put it in there, top and bottom.

00:31:59.560 --> 00:32:03.240
And within I want to say three days, you could see nice and clean.

00:32:03.240 --> 00:32:09.560
It it always amazes me that the the old wax and the frames you look at, it's it's not the new pristine wax.

00:32:09.560 --> 00:32:12.200
You see the bees have been walking all over it.

00:32:12.120 --> 00:32:16.520
You put the new wax in there, they will put the new wax over the old wax.

00:32:16.520 --> 00:32:19.080
To the point where the situation is the varsan

00:32:19.660 --> 00:32:21.420
They did a fine job repairing it.

00:32:21.740 --> 00:32:23.500
I have a lot of those frames.

00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:25.340
And and it happens fairly quickly.

00:32:25.340 --> 00:32:28.380
It's it's it's not even after an extended use of it.

00:32:28.540 --> 00:32:39.980
I'm curious, is it have you figured out how to do this with burr comb so that we could just scrape the tops of our frames and then put that comb in to different locations?

00:32:39.980 --> 00:32:41.580
And does that work?

00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:49.919
When I see any bridge comb or bird comb in my hive or even till lately I even saw some drone brood on the bottom.

00:32:49.660 --> 00:32:55.420
I s it's kind of n nasty, but it squished out the the the bees that I did well in there and put that wax back in there.

00:32:55.420 --> 00:32:56.060
You'd be amazed.

00:32:56.060 --> 00:32:59.420
If you put it usually up in the top corners, I'll put it in the bees will chew it up.

00:32:59.420 --> 00:33:00.860
Not always the prettiest cone.

00:33:00.860 --> 00:33:02.380
You don't want to leave the

00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:09.360
the actual sir the hexagon the comb form because if it's facing down the bees are just kinda they'll attach it and leave it there.

00:33:09.360 --> 00:33:10.400
Crush it up

00:33:10.460 --> 00:33:12.140
They'll they'll repair it.

00:33:12.140 --> 00:33:18.780
The also with the wax, the beautiful thing is about having given this presentation for well over a year now.

00:33:18.960 --> 00:33:20.000
I'm getting feedback.

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:27.120
I had a couple of beekeepers who were telling me, I always get I often was getting the question, what do I do with my rendered wax?

00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:29.880
Rendered wax, wax that people melted down.

00:33:29.880 --> 00:33:38.600
They have that block that's usually sitting on their desk and they if you don't make candles or some type of cosmetics or hand cream or something, you don't do anything with that wax.

00:33:38.460 --> 00:33:43.340
The beautiful thing is Betterbee and other companies actually sell a silicone mold.

00:33:43.340 --> 00:33:46.780
If you've seen this, the bright orange, Betterbee has it.

00:33:46.780 --> 00:33:48.380
You can melt down your wax.

00:33:48.380 --> 00:33:51.580
You can you're basically making your own foundation sheets

00:33:51.919 --> 00:33:53.039
I haven't done it yet.

00:33:53.039 --> 00:33:58.720
I am gonna be doing it hopefully before July, before I go to the E EIS conference.

00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:00.320
That I've seen people do it.

00:34:00.320 --> 00:34:03.360
They basically did the exact same thing I was doing with their own wax.

00:34:03.360 --> 00:34:05.280
You're taking your own sheet of wax

00:34:04.980 --> 00:34:08.980
You're rolling, folding that up, you're putting that on the inside perimeter of your frame.

00:34:08.980 --> 00:34:11.460
You're reusing the wax you have sitting around the house.

00:34:11.460 --> 00:34:14.899
It'd be nice to have beekeepers recycle their wax more like that

00:34:15.040 --> 00:34:17.520
Is this your primary experiment you've been doing?

00:34:17.520 --> 00:34:23.760
You sound like you were getting ready to do another type of experiment with your bees or andor the wax?

00:34:23.460 --> 00:34:29.940
Yeah, now it's just the plastic foundation frames where where I've got the deeps, I don't like working with plastics.

00:34:29.940 --> 00:34:35.780
I did my second year of beekeeping I dropped I enjoy having I prefer and I think the bees.

00:34:35.559 --> 00:34:37.240
prefer the wax foundation.

00:34:37.240 --> 00:34:41.720
I'm using plastic, like I said, because I've seen more than I don't know what the number is.

00:34:41.720 --> 00:34:47.799
I'd have to say it's gotta be more than for the hobby beekeepers, more than half of them now are using the plastic foundation.

00:34:47.559 --> 00:34:49.480
I want to see if that works out well.

00:34:49.480 --> 00:34:56.679
The funny thing is, when I did it last year with the spring experiment, as I said, I put wax rolls in every frame and two of the hives.

00:34:56.380 --> 00:34:57.980
I didn't have any debris in the bottom.

00:34:57.980 --> 00:35:01.500
The bees were using all the wax, it appeared, once again for Dr.

00:35:01.500 --> 00:35:05.820
Farkt Tarve there it appeared that the bees were using all the wax I gave them.

00:35:06.020 --> 00:35:10.180
This season I'll have to send you this photo also and I just sent it to Dr.

00:35:10.180 --> 00:35:11.460
Peck today.

00:35:11.460 --> 00:35:20.660
There was on the bottom, the bees just about finished building out the two packages I put in inserted into these two plastic foundation frames, hives.

00:35:20.700 --> 00:35:22.380
The there's a lot of debris.

00:35:22.380 --> 00:35:26.540
Actually it was probably a sixteenth of an inch of chewed up wax.

00:35:26.540 --> 00:35:29.260
I mean really fine like sawdust on the bottom.

00:35:29.260 --> 00:35:32.540
The bees were you and I did weigh it, it was like six ounces

00:35:32.660 --> 00:35:42.260
And I want to say with the wax rolls that I put in there were actually the the total wax the weight of the wax rolls that I put in the hives were 36.

00:35:42.260 --> 00:35:43.060
8 ounces.

00:35:43.060 --> 00:35:44.500
So 36 ounces

00:35:45.060 --> 00:35:50.900
And the amount of wax debris on the bottom, I weighed it, was about six ounces.

00:35:50.900 --> 00:35:52.900
So six ounces out of thirty-six.

00:35:52.900 --> 00:35:56.500
So the bees used most of the wax I put in there, I believe.

00:35:56.520 --> 00:35:57.960
whatever reason.

00:35:57.960 --> 00:36:06.599
If you think about it, it's probably it might be one of those things where pli when I did it last year, picture your foundation being just wax.

00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:07.320
All right.

00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:11.000
You'll use the exact same wax on my rolls.

00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:18.319
For the bees to chew it up and it's and apply it wax the wax is I'm sure a pretty simple comp deal for them

00:36:18.540 --> 00:36:26.140
When you're asking them to take your your natural beeswax and apply it to that plastic frame, maybe it's one of those deals where

00:36:26.240 --> 00:36:31.600
They're then maybe they're mixing some of their own wax in there because they don't want to just use the wax that I'm providing.

00:36:31.600 --> 00:36:32.880
I gotta figure that out.

00:36:32.880 --> 00:36:38.640
My guess would also be when I do this later on in the season, I'm gonna repeat this in mid probably August.

00:36:38.540 --> 00:36:42.140
The bees think about it, the bees aren't really producing wax in August.

00:36:42.140 --> 00:36:47.820
If I give them the wax, they need so a certain amount to build that cone all the way out.

00:36:47.460 --> 00:36:51.140
I'm expecting that they're not gonna have all that debris.

00:36:51.140 --> 00:36:55.140
They're gonna use most of the wax, if not all the wax I give them, if that makes sense.

00:36:55.140 --> 00:36:57.700
So that's what I'm working on now, getting the bees to

00:36:57.940 --> 00:37:01.140
to use plastic foundation and see how well they do with that.

00:37:01.140 --> 00:37:08.740
And the the silly thing is too, I've been meaning to do it, whereas I mentioned I put the sheet of wax in between the frames to get them the cap

00:37:09.040 --> 00:37:15.760
I'm gonna I'm gonna try it in some of my overwintered hives in a in a brood area.

00:37:15.760 --> 00:37:18.480
I'm just gonna instead of putting the wax rules on the

00:37:18.640 --> 00:37:26.000
on the fi on the frame, I'm just gonna put a couple of sheets on both sides of the both sides of the frame and see if they actually use that.

00:37:26.000 --> 00:37:28.079
Mostly they you'd be surprised.

00:37:28.079 --> 00:37:30.880
Whenever you put wax anywhere in that general area

00:37:30.960 --> 00:37:31.840
brood area.

00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:37.600
If it's something they can manipulate, something they can grab with immandles, not that block of wax, they're gonna use it.

00:37:37.600 --> 00:37:42.240
I've seen videos where people put z wax shavings or something in their hog on the bottom.

00:37:41.880 --> 00:37:43.240
The bees drag it out.

00:37:43.240 --> 00:37:44.440
Put it in the frame.

00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:46.920
You break off something as you go into the hive.

00:37:47.000 --> 00:37:48.360
You break you get comb on the bottom.

00:37:48.360 --> 00:37:49.560
You get burcomb

00:37:49.840 --> 00:37:51.200
Put it back on the frame.

00:37:51.200 --> 00:37:53.120
The bee you will see the bees chew it up.

00:37:53.120 --> 00:37:54.720
Take a photo before you do it.

00:37:54.720 --> 00:37:57.200
The the the bazing thing with technology, it it's great.

00:37:57.200 --> 00:37:58.800
If this had been many years ago

00:37:59.240 --> 00:38:01.960
Who carries a camera around with them, correct?

00:38:01.960 --> 00:38:05.320
Now we all do, technically, because we've been on our cell phones.

00:38:05.320 --> 00:38:06.840
Once again, I'm not a scientist.

00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:09.160
The the great thing was when I started doing this

00:38:09.280 --> 00:38:15.280
back in August of 2024, I took photos of the frame that I was gonna put in the hive with the wax rules on it.

00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:19.359
And then I took photos a week later when I was surprised to see what they did

00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:20.800
That I do encourage people.

00:38:20.800 --> 00:38:22.400
The beautiful thing is it's your hive.

00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:23.119
Do whatever you want.

00:38:23.119 --> 00:38:28.000
Oh, not that you can cause problems, but do whatever you want do whatever you want in your hive, but d but

00:38:28.460 --> 00:38:30.780
It's keep track of what you're doing and you'd be surprised.

00:38:30.780 --> 00:38:34.220
I tell ya some of these days I went out and checked the highballs like Christmas morning.

00:38:34.220 --> 00:38:35.100
I'm like, really?

00:38:35.100 --> 00:38:36.700
This actually happened

00:38:36.359 --> 00:38:39.800
And I do have to add, when I get my presentation, it's not all positive.

00:38:39.800 --> 00:38:42.280
You go in this time, some things don't work out.

00:38:42.280 --> 00:38:44.440
All data is good data, they say.

00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:47.960
The one thing one thing that definitely didn't work out, I had

00:38:48.540 --> 00:38:52.620
Some beekeepers in their honey supers will pull a frame.

00:38:52.620 --> 00:38:55.260
Pull a frame because they want to make it easy for uncapping.

00:38:55.260 --> 00:38:59.100
Hit a 10-frame high if you pull out a frame, you get nine nine frames.

00:38:59.160 --> 00:39:03.560
just so you can easily take the uncapping knife and cut off the cappings.

00:39:03.560 --> 00:39:09.720
Some people, like I said, I tried in I pulled a frame in the middle.

00:39:09.559 --> 00:39:14.440
And I did add to wax rolls on a frame that completely filled up with nectar.

00:39:14.440 --> 00:39:20.760
And I wanted to see, okay, are they gonna build out that comb a little bit further like I wanted them to.

00:39:20.559 --> 00:39:22.640
I went in and it was a mess.

00:39:22.640 --> 00:39:25.119
They built comb hanging down everywhere.

00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:28.319
I know part of it was because I probably gave them too much wax.

00:39:28.319 --> 00:39:33.680
You'd be surprised, just a little thin roll of wax, how far it actually goes, because if you look at how

00:39:33.760 --> 00:39:36.880
your your cells, how thin those cell walls are.

00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:39.040
It doesn't take a lot of wax.

00:39:39.040 --> 00:39:43.040
The cool thing is too, when I when I noticed it when the bees were

00:39:43.620 --> 00:39:48.020
Using the wax I gave them last year to to build out some honey frames.

00:39:48.020 --> 00:39:49.460
I'm always amazed.

00:39:49.460 --> 00:39:54.660
You go in there, they're constructing the same time bees are bringing in nectar.

00:39:54.540 --> 00:40:00.300
As as it people we don't we don't want somebody bumping into us when we're working on something, right?

00:40:00.300 --> 00:40:04.540
But the bees are all over it in an area, building up the comb while they're filling it.

00:40:04.540 --> 00:40:07.340
One of the biggest things I found as a use for this

00:40:07.920 --> 00:40:09.040
Honeybound.

00:40:09.040 --> 00:40:14.560
I had a gentleman I was mentoring a couple of years ago, that same year, 2024.

00:40:14.560 --> 00:40:17.600
He had he had split a split his hives.

00:40:17.600 --> 00:40:20.000
He didn't have enough comb in September.

00:40:19.940 --> 00:40:26.740
We need that obviously big cluster of bees going into our winter up here in this cold climate in Massachusetts.

00:40:26.740 --> 00:40:29.140
His problem was honeybound.

00:40:29.140 --> 00:40:32.180
Any of the new beekeepers know if they're not aware of that term.

00:40:32.180 --> 00:40:40.020
Honeybound means the queen the bees are bringing in nectar backfilling, filling in where the queen should be laying her eggs.

00:40:40.020 --> 00:40:41.779
We remedied his problem

00:40:42.620 --> 00:40:48.380
He had a medium super on top of this deep 10 frame that was that had the wax foundation it.

00:40:48.380 --> 00:40:50.940
The bees weren't going up and building out that comb.

00:40:50.940 --> 00:40:53.020
We took that whole 10 frame super

00:40:53.740 --> 00:40:58.860
put the wax rules on it in early September, probably the first week of September.

00:40:58.860 --> 00:41:01.020
And he did actually he did have two deeps.

00:41:01.020 --> 00:41:03.420
He did but they weren't going up to the medium.

00:41:03.260 --> 00:41:07.420
What we did is, once again, where are all your B's and down below?

00:41:07.420 --> 00:41:10.460
What we did is we sandwiched it between the two deeps.

00:41:10.460 --> 00:41:13.500
You took the medium in between the two deeps.

00:41:13.260 --> 00:41:23.100
The bees within a few days you could see were already building out the comb and already putting nectar in the in those comb in that comb, which means they were not putting it into the brood.

00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:24.520
chamber, which was beautiful.

00:41:24.520 --> 00:41:26.200
That did solve his problem.

00:41:26.200 --> 00:41:27.720
He didn't have any other comb.

00:41:27.720 --> 00:41:30.120
That's what we did to fix fix his situation.

00:41:30.120 --> 00:41:32.680
That worked out well for being honeybound.

00:41:32.460 --> 00:41:33.660
It's really good.

00:41:33.660 --> 00:41:41.820
It's a trick you can definitely use even when you're supering, it's just you can bottom super and get them to encourage them to dry out the

00:41:42.520 --> 00:41:51.160
foundation, but it makes sense in in an emergency that you could use it in a different way as long as you provide them the resources that you do not have in September.

00:41:51.160 --> 00:41:52.680
So that's interesting.

00:41:52.559 --> 00:41:54.000
Then and think about it.

00:41:54.000 --> 00:42:02.480
Those twelve to eighteen day year old bees that are produced and the bees that are produced the majority of the c the wax are t between twelve and eighteen days old.

00:42:02.680 --> 00:42:06.200
What are those 12 to 18 day-year-old bees doing?

00:42:06.200 --> 00:42:09.240
I haven't gotten a scientist to give me an answer for this one yet.

00:42:09.240 --> 00:42:10.280
Late season.

00:42:10.280 --> 00:42:12.280
After that early July period.

00:42:12.200 --> 00:42:14.280
What are those twelve to eighteen day-year-old bees doing?

00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:15.960
They're not ready to go out in the field yet.

00:42:15.960 --> 00:42:22.359
Why not put them to work and tell people, build build out some comb this year that you can use next year?

00:42:22.160 --> 00:42:24.880
Especially if a new beekeeper, you know, you got one or two hives.

00:42:24.880 --> 00:42:31.280
We are asking that small cluster of three pounds of bees when you get your package to build out the entire colony.

00:42:31.059 --> 00:42:34.900
You have a lot of bees if your hive is strong late season.

00:42:34.900 --> 00:42:35.779
Put them to work.

00:42:35.779 --> 00:42:44.660
The other experiment I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take the entire eight frame deep and I'm gonna get that and I'm gonna try to get all for eight frames built out between probably August and September

00:42:44.740 --> 00:42:50.740
You know usually that time of season your outside frames, your one and your ten, usually have honey in it.

00:42:51.460 --> 00:42:52.820
Pull those frames.

00:42:52.660 --> 00:42:55.620
Put in two frames with wax rolls, put them towards the middle.

00:42:55.620 --> 00:42:57.860
I wouldn't put a put a brood frame between them.

00:42:57.860 --> 00:43:01.380
Don't put don't put two frames side by side with the wax rolls.

00:43:01.040 --> 00:43:01.920
Put them in there.

00:43:01.920 --> 00:43:05.920
I would guess within a week or so, those two frames are gonna be built out.

00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:08.240
Pull out another two, put in another two.

00:43:08.240 --> 00:43:12.080
I would like I said, I would think within a month and a half maybe I can get the whole

00:43:12.059 --> 00:43:15.740
eight or if you've got a 10 frame beef, you can use those frames the following year.

00:43:15.740 --> 00:43:16.700
That's the beautiful thing.

00:43:17.180 --> 00:43:20.460
Put those put that large colony of bees to work.

00:43:20.340 --> 00:43:21.620
If that makes sense.

00:43:21.620 --> 00:43:23.940
You want to start a neat nuke the following year.

00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:25.620
Get them to build out the wax.

00:43:25.620 --> 00:43:31.860
You'll see you if you sell nucs, this is a s probably a speedier way to get your comb build out in your nucs

00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:33.040
Give them the wax.

00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:36.000
Plus they e I'm sure they e they're consuming less.

00:43:36.080 --> 00:43:39.760
I love how you've said a couple of times that you're not a scientist, but

00:43:40.040 --> 00:43:43.640
If you're doing science, I'm just gonna say you're at some level a scientist.

00:43:43.640 --> 00:43:48.920
And I'm curious how you if you have any special way that you're marking or tracking your frames.

00:43:49.220 --> 00:43:54.339
Because if I if I need to go back to a colony, I'll just do a and check on a specific frame.

00:43:54.339 --> 00:43:56.740
I'll just take my head tool and maybe make an X.

00:43:56.740 --> 00:44:02.660
but are you are you marking your frames that you're putting into colonies at all to help you track things

00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:05.440
Meg when I was first doing this it started out with A and B.

00:44:05.520 --> 00:44:13.520
A bee and it's funny looking at some of my and that's another beautiful thing about the cell phone, you get the date you get the date of the photo, which is which is perfect.

00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:16.240
The date of the photo, I'd I'd give it I'd

00:44:18.460 --> 00:44:22.220
And it's funny because when I first started doing this, I wasn't keeping track any other way.

00:44:22.780 --> 00:44:25.660
Taking the photo, writing the letter on it.

00:44:25.340 --> 00:44:33.500
got to the point, well, geez, did I leave on s S or T or end up putting double letters on there and then I put, you know, numerous things on there.

00:44:33.500 --> 00:44:37.900
Okay, three star, four, whatever differentiated but the beautiful thing is taking a photo.

00:44:37.900 --> 00:44:40.060
More than anything I'd be taking photos.

00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:41.120
I have the Sharpie with me.

00:44:41.120 --> 00:44:43.520
Put a simple date on there with the Sharpie.

00:44:43.920 --> 00:44:46.720
Different I should say a letter on there with the Sharpie.

00:44:46.720 --> 00:44:48.320
Mark up your hive as much as you want.

00:44:48.320 --> 00:44:49.600
The funny thing is the bees

00:44:49.680 --> 00:44:52.080
The bees with the sharpie you gotta be quick because they don't like it.

00:44:52.080 --> 00:44:59.040
They'll go right to the t tip of the sharpie and I don't know what they're trying to do to it, may sting it or something, but you gotta be quick.

00:44:58.760 --> 00:45:07.640
And then when you take your photo it's always tricky 'cause you gotta bang 'em off or get 'em off and they always want to seem to walk across the spot where the you've got the letter on there.

00:45:07.380 --> 00:45:09.060
Sharpies are are good things.

00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:11.300
They will stay in that frame for a long time.

00:45:11.300 --> 00:45:20.180
I've had frames where I've switched out the foundation and I still have the last year on the found on the on the top, so it can get a little messy

00:45:20.080 --> 00:45:25.920
So Dave, just real quick on on when you're talking about rolling the foundation, are you rolling it tight when you roll it?

00:45:25.920 --> 00:45:28.000
I know that you know, if if it's

00:45:28.220 --> 00:45:31.339
The warmer the wax is, the easier it is to roll.

00:45:31.339 --> 00:45:35.660
But do you roll it tighter than not tight or is it a real loose roll?

00:45:35.660 --> 00:45:37.099
How do the bees prefer it?

00:45:37.099 --> 00:45:38.940
If you went too tight it's not gonna work.

00:45:38.940 --> 00:45:41.819
It's gonna it's gonna be hard for them that to manipulate it

00:45:41.840 --> 00:45:51.200
And this being a podcast, not a video, the when I when I first started doing it, I'm sorry, no better way of explaining it, it's like you're rolling up a cigarette or something.

00:45:51.180 --> 00:45:56.220
to the point you're putting your fingers in there, taking the sheet, rolling out, folding it over once, folding over twice.

00:45:56.380 --> 00:46:02.380
I did eventually find something in my kitchen called a dough slicer or dough cutter, I think.

00:46:02.140 --> 00:46:05.740
where it's got a flat edge, metal flat edge, not sharp.

00:46:05.740 --> 00:46:13.339
The beautiful thing about that was is I can easily fold it over once, flip it and fold it over again and just kinda maybe roll it a little bit on the table.

00:46:13.339 --> 00:46:15.500
It's not a solid it's not a solid

00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:17.760
piece when you give it to them.

00:46:17.760 --> 00:46:19.840
I don't think they could use it if it was solid.

00:46:19.840 --> 00:46:22.560
Yeah, not solid, just enough for them to grab on.

00:46:22.560 --> 00:46:24.720
You may it's amazing too when you see them

00:46:24.660 --> 00:46:29.220
if you do use wax foundation, they're able somehow to chew through the bottom of that wax.

00:46:29.220 --> 00:46:31.380
They don't need an edge just so to speak.

00:46:31.380 --> 00:46:33.380
Somehow they're able to chew through it

00:46:33.260 --> 00:46:43.340
I'm curious, have you done any kind of a cost analysis as far as like how much you need to invest in order to get a frame of you know, one new

00:46:43.920 --> 00:46:48.400
medium frame of foundation and and or sorry, comb on foundation.

00:46:48.720 --> 00:46:52.800
I do have a good slide for that when I give my presentation and it's still on Dr.

00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:54.960
Tarpey's YouTube channel.

00:46:54.960 --> 00:47:04.160
When I did this back in 2024, when I bought the twenty-five pound bat box of wax foundation, I want to say it was about a dollar ten per wax sheet.

00:47:04.160 --> 00:47:05.840
I wanna say I had to use

00:47:05.960 --> 00:47:08.360
it was ended up to being like three dollars a sheet.

00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:10.040
I'm sorry, three dollars a frame.

00:47:10.040 --> 00:47:11.800
Medium frame, three dollars.

00:47:11.800 --> 00:47:14.840
Picture you have your ten frame, that's thirty dollars a frame.

00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:18.200
The thing is when you're building out those frames, it's not for one year.

00:47:18.200 --> 00:47:20.760
You may get five years out of that.

00:47:20.240 --> 00:47:27.200
And I did the I did the math with the you make extract from that honey frame twice a year.

00:47:27.200 --> 00:47:31.440
You make it as much as I think somebody told me I'm as much as three pounds of honey per

00:47:32.120 --> 00:47:33.080
Extraction.

00:47:33.080 --> 00:47:38.760
So you make as much as six pounds of honey per year over a five year period.

00:47:38.760 --> 00:47:42.440
Thirty pounds of honey that you just spent thirty dollars for

00:47:42.740 --> 00:47:50.180
So if you spent obviously if you're you know even you're selling your honey for ten dollars a pound, we're talking you know three hundred dollars or whatever the math is there

00:47:50.460 --> 00:47:52.300
it cost effective wise.

00:47:52.300 --> 00:47:55.980
And I also use it basically there's no free lunch, I tell people.

00:47:55.980 --> 00:48:04.380
The bees, if you're not feeding them, and if it's if it's late season, you're probably not feeding them anyway, all that nectar that they're bringing in that they're consuming

00:48:04.640 --> 00:48:06.319
And I use the Dr.

00:48:06.319 --> 00:48:13.599
Tarpee was using ten ten he uses ten pounds of nectar, honey, sugar syrup to produce a pound of wax.

00:48:13.599 --> 00:48:16.480
All that they have to produce to make that wax

00:48:17.099 --> 00:48:25.740
goes into play also because if you're spending the money on whether you're spending on sugar syrup or honey that you're gonna extract, why not give them the wax?

00:48:25.740 --> 00:48:28.140
I also when I went to the ABF

00:48:28.720 --> 00:48:34.960
conference in January, there's a gentleman, a medical doctor, an MV, that gave a presentation on the health of the bees.

00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:40.160
We had a good conversation afterwards because I what I went where I was going with it

00:48:40.440 --> 00:48:50.200
When I did that experiment with the two hives that I gave them all the wax, those bees probably had to produce very little wax from their bodies during that whole season.

00:48:50.200 --> 00:48:52.839
What benefit what is it to the bees?

00:48:53.040 --> 00:48:55.280
would they possibly live longer?

00:48:55.440 --> 00:49:07.680
W when we had the discussion, it came about to as an example, a woman who has children, it does take off it may take off some of her lifespan because of all the stress on her body.

00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:12.000
the stress or e exertion the bees have to do to produce all that wax.

00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:16.400
What if your bees are living so it we're talking numbers here.

00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:22.160
What if your colony, all the bees, if you gave them that extra wax, are living a little longer?

00:49:21.359 --> 00:49:24.160
Say t even in something simple two days.

00:49:24.160 --> 00:49:29.599
Two days longer for fifty thousand bees, those bees going out and giving and pollinating

00:49:29.740 --> 00:49:35.340
It may be of a benefit to your highs, just giving them some supplemental wax from that point of view.

00:49:35.340 --> 00:49:36.540
Something to think about.

00:49:36.540 --> 00:49:43.500
Well this has been really fascinating, Dave, going back to my foundation days and just wondering why are they chewing off the bottom of the foundation?

00:49:43.500 --> 00:49:44.140
I don't

00:49:44.240 --> 00:49:48.720
Now I understand why that's I just thought they were just doing despite me.

00:49:48.720 --> 00:49:49.680
Not not really.

00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:50.880
Taking it personally.

00:49:50.880 --> 00:49:52.000
Yeah, taking it personally.

00:49:52.260 --> 00:50:00.420
But no, this is really fascinating and we know it happens, but to actually see it with the colored wax like you did, it was just enthralling.

00:50:00.420 --> 00:50:00.740
So

00:50:01.340 --> 00:50:14.220
I appreciate you taking the time on this busy time of the year to come and talk to us and to our listeners about your experiments with your bees and the movement of wax throughout the hive.

00:50:13.880 --> 00:50:15.080
Yeah, super interesting.

00:50:15.080 --> 00:50:16.120
Thank you, Dave.

00:50:16.120 --> 00:50:18.520
Yeah, well it's it's great to get the exposure.

00:50:18.520 --> 00:50:23.160
And I also always tell people, if you learned something, share it with others.

00:50:23.160 --> 00:50:24.040
You never know.

00:50:24.040 --> 00:50:28.120
This may have been something that somebody figured out long ago and just didn't share it.

00:50:28.120 --> 00:50:28.440
So

00:50:28.660 --> 00:50:33.300
When you figure something out, you learn something new, even even not just necessarily in beekeeping, anything in life.

00:50:33.300 --> 00:50:37.380
You learn something, share it with others and see see where it goes from there.

00:50:38.140 --> 00:50:42.859
We will all learn it's amazing we're all learning new things all the time about bees.

00:50:42.859 --> 00:50:43.980
Well thanks a lot, Dave.

00:50:43.980 --> 00:50:47.660
We look forward to having you back down the road to hear what else you've discovered.

00:50:47.660 --> 00:50:48.539
Thanks for having me.

00:50:48.539 --> 00:50:50.859
Have a good day.

00:50:50.859 --> 00:50:52.859
We rarely talk about wax.

00:50:53.220 --> 00:51:01.700
So much unless it's in connection with candles or maybe contests or something, but the production and movement of wax throughout the hive by the colony is

00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:03.520
A fascinating topic.

00:51:03.920 --> 00:51:14.640
I heard something last year about drawing out late season comb and that was I think it was oh I won't say it in case I'm wrong, but it was about providing a really

00:51:15.420 --> 00:51:21.260
low drip of syrup late in the season to mimic to mimic a n a nectar flow.

00:51:21.260 --> 00:51:25.900
Anyway, I just it's it's interesting that be it's a problem beekeepers have been trying to solve

00:51:25.960 --> 00:51:30.840
you know, if you have foundation and need comb, it you know, y we we don't make it.

00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:32.760
So it you need the bees to do it.

00:51:32.760 --> 00:51:36.360
So it it's it's great that there's there's hope for people out there.

00:51:36.360 --> 00:51:39.640
This conversation's interesting because this last spring with the swarms

00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:45.920
had a swarm move into a hive that was empty and I said, woohoo, a self-catching swarm.

00:51:45.920 --> 00:51:51.200
And about a week after they were in, I wanted to just do a quick inspection.

00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:57.760
And I separated the top box from the bottom box and, you know, of course, there were some missing frames in the bottom box.

00:51:57.760 --> 00:52:01.600
Oh, and they had started the draw out comb, right?

00:52:01.600 --> 00:52:01.920
Yep.

00:52:01.920 --> 00:52:02.240
Yep.

00:52:02.240 --> 00:52:05.280
And and I started looking at the comb, but it wasn't

00:52:04.840 --> 00:52:07.080
the pearly white like we're used to.

00:52:07.080 --> 00:52:08.680
It was kind of a gray.

00:52:08.840 --> 00:52:10.040
Interesting.

00:52:10.040 --> 00:52:16.040
They must have been repurposing comb from other places and building out new comb in that space.

00:52:16.040 --> 00:52:16.760
And it's like

00:52:16.859 --> 00:52:20.300
So topical with this conversation, that's what they were doing.

00:52:20.300 --> 00:52:20.700
Yeah.

00:52:20.700 --> 00:52:24.700
No, it is it's something if you think about it when people talk about even, you know

00:52:25.140 --> 00:52:30.660
learning about bees in your second, third, fourth year, we don't do a ton of of of comb production.

00:52:30.660 --> 00:52:33.380
We try to get people so that they keep their f

00:52:33.760 --> 00:52:43.600
frame spaced close together when drawing it out so that you don't have you have nice even frames, but we don't go much more in depth about comb.

00:52:43.600 --> 00:52:45.520
So it's it's good to have the conversation

00:52:46.220 --> 00:52:50.299
And that about wraps it up for this episode of Beekeeping Today.

00:52:50.299 --> 00:52:57.900
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00:53:27.420 --> 00:53:28.859
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00:53:29.140 --> 00:53:31.779
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00:53:31.779 --> 00:53:33.140
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00:53:33.140 --> 00:53:35.220
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