More than honey

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:21]Thanks for joining us for this week's live Q&A. Today the theme is more than honey. Chime in. Let us know what it is about beekeeping that is really enjoyable for you. Obviously, we have this amazing thing we called honey, which we will be harvesting some of today. But we're also going to get right into the brood nest of a hive over there using our new super lifter. But chime in, let us know what it is about beekeeping that is really enjoyable for you. So, what we're going to do is set up a little shelf here using the rear window. Now, some people have put their kit together and they put the brackets on. They go, "Where is the harvesting shelf?" Well, it's actually a double use of this rear window here. Where possible, we like to make things uh multi-use.

[00:01:17]That way, we can simplify and simplify beekeeping down to just a simple hive like this that has all of your equipment for extracting the honey built right into the hive. And that way you don't need a shed full of equipment. So stay tuned. We will be harvesting some honey here. Now looking at this window, you can see there's a bit of a variety. And the rear window tells a story. So what it's telling me is actually the bees did have full cells. When you get this full cell, then missing then full cell, that tells us that the bees have gotten a little bit hungry. They're chewing the capping off, using that honey, and that way you get this checkerboarding. If you if you've got it sort of all full down the center but not out to the edge, that's the filling pattern.

[00:02:12]So, what we risk now is actually harvesting a frame of honey that they might have eaten some out of above the brood nest, but we're going to harvest anyway. We'll soon know whether the frame is full or not. On this side, you can see the frame we harvested last week, which is super interesting because I can see that the bees don't need a whole lot of space in a hurry because they haven't chewed off all of the capping yet. So, in these areas, they've chewed off the capping, they fixed up the cells, they're ready to go again, depositing nectar. But here, they've left it because they don't really need the space. If they did and they're on a good honey flow, they would tear that down and make space by waxing up all of the cells again and starting to deposit nectar. So, it's quite interesting how the bees behave depending on what's going on in the world with the flowers and the nectar and the pollen.

[00:03:16]Chime in, let us know what you love about beekeeping. The theme is more than honey today. A lot of people get into beekeeping for the honey, which I certainly really love honey. And I'm just going to turn this key here. And it's not too hard to turn today. So, I'll do it in two movements there. But you can break it up if it's hard to turn. You never know how well the bees have waxed up those parts. Sometimes they're a bit harder to move. There's the honey coming down the tube there.

[00:03:52]And I can't wait to taste that because I love all the different flavors of honey and working out what the bees are foraging on and what the honey tastes like.

[00:04:06]Huh. I wasn't expecting that. But this actually tastes like macadamia honey, which is a pretty neutral honey type flavor that you'd expect to find on the supermarket shelf.

[00:04:21]It's uh with this color tone, I expected to find some really bright floral notes, but it's really interesting that you get different honeys per frame. And it's become one of the amazing benefits of harvesting honey with our FLHive invention is you can really get all sorts of different flavors from a single hive, which wasn't practically possible before. If you got questions, put it in the comments below. Also, let us know what it is about beekeeping that you love. And pretty soon, we're going to be using our Super Lifter to open a hive and look in at the brood nest. Have we got any questions coming in, Lauren?

[00:05:05]>> Yeah. So, someone was just wondering, "What made you first get into beekeeping in the first place?"

[00:05:10]So I guess it was just a family tradition if you like as backyard beekeepers and harvesting honey on my grandfather's farm was you know very much fond memories when I was a kid and still when I smell that yellow box flavor of those trees and the honey it produces I get taken right back to those first memories. And I guess honey for me was definitely the attraction. I can remember climbing up the shelves to get the big jars, big jars of honey like this on the top shelf, pulling the whole shelf down, smashing honey everywhere. I guess I was a bit of a a honey lover from early on.

[00:05:53]So for me, definitely it's about honey.

[00:05:57]But as you learn more and more about bees and honey, you start to get really interested in the other aspects of beekeeping.

[00:06:07]So, you've got this fascinating world in here. And it's only when we look after the bees down here in the bottom box in the brood nest that we get this beautiful reward. And often the looking after the bees and doing your brood inspections becomes a fascinating, really enjoyable and rewarding pursuit.

[00:06:29]And after a while, some people that is the main thing they're attracted to is is really learning more and more about the world of bees.

[00:06:40]You've also got the pollination aspect which is incredible and we are now intertwined with a maleifera the European honeybee because you're the only thing or only insect on the planet that can do the level of pollination that we now need for our whole agricultural setup. So, a hive like this could pollinate 50 million flowers in a day, which is extraordinary, those numbers. Uh, you know, even more actually when you do the math on it.

[00:07:16]>> Do you find that your different hives have different personalities? I've heard you reference this hive as being specifically grumpy, but do you see different personalities from hive to hive?

[00:07:26]>> Absolutely. So, the genetics or the traits of the hive is set by the queen's own genetics and the 30 or so drone bees, the male bees she's mated with.

[00:07:40]She mates in the first week or two of her life and that's it. The genetics is set from the male bees and her own and that will set the temperament and different hives will behave differently.

[00:07:55]Now, we've got a very windy day here, and that's why we're on the uh on the downwind side of our office here where we are sheltering from the wind. And normally, you wouldn't be opening a hive on a really windy day. It's best to wait on a nice warm sunny day, but we'll open a hive and see the things you do for the camera. But that's when you learn about the temperament. Some hives won't mind being opened on a really windy gray day.

[00:08:26]Others will really let you know that they didn't like it. So, always wear a good beeuit. Wear your gloves if you need a beekeeping.

[00:08:34]Now, one bee fell into the honey really early on here. Normally, they float on top, but this one is under honey. Now, they can be under honey for a while, but I might just fish that one out so the other bees can clean it up. and it will be just fine. So, I can use this key here to to get that bee to the surface again. Yeah, it's unusual to have it so far down. Now, that's a little bit messy, isn't it? Cuz I'm right under the honey stream. There we go. Okay, now come with me, little bee.

[00:09:14]Oh, close.

[00:09:17]When they're on top, it's a little bit easier, but we'll get there.

[00:09:21]spoon might be a better better thing.

[00:09:23]There we go. So, that bee, although if it was under completely under honey like that for a while, then yes, it would suffocate, but it's amazing how long they can be in a bucket of honey and still survive. So, if I put that back on the landing board here, what you'll find, see, other bees will be very quick to clean it up. You can see it's moving already. It'll be just fine.

[00:09:56]Good idea to cover up your jar if you are walking away.

[00:10:00]Make sure you don't get a jar full of bees when you're harvesting.

[00:10:07]>> Um, another question, Cedar. Do you have any advice for someone who's interested in getting started in beekeeping, but might be feeling a little hesitant or overwhelmed about the process and the setup and the equipment? Sure.

[00:10:21]So, with the Flowhive, we've actually simplified the processing setup for harvesting honey. And the reason why we did that is I found it was an incredible amount of work. A lot of hard heavy lifting, which isn't for everybody. A lot of disturbance to the bees. You've got boxes of honey. You got leaf blowers. You're stomping all over bees.

[00:10:44]You're transferring those conventional frames to your processing shed. You've got a whole area set up with stainless steel benches, spinners, decapping knives. So once upon a time, you had to learn about all of that, purchase all that equipment, maintain all of that equipment, clean all of that equipment afterwards. And that was the inspiration for a turnkey solution. Excuse the pun, but we turn this key here and the honey comes out. So it really changed the way harvesting honey was done. And it's as easy as you saw me just turning the key here today to harvest the honey from your hive. And that simplifies the whole setup to as you see here. This is all you need is the hive in your garden. You can look after the bees down here. You can harvest honey from our flow frame invention here. It's also useful to have a toolbox like this for when you are looking after the baby bees down in the brood nest. You want your smoker, bee brush, and your jhive tool. And it's handy to have a little toolbox like this to keep it all in one place. So, we're going to go and open a hive. Now, if we get our smoker going while we keep answering a few questions. But look at that honey just glowing in the sun. It's such a a beautiful thing. It's mesmerizing to watch it just pour out of the hive in this almost surreal way.

[00:12:24]When you consider what we had to do before in order to harvest honey and get to a real clear product like this, you'll notice there's really no filtering needed. Now, occasionally you might get a couple of flakes of wax on top, but look at this. That is ready to win prizes at the show, and often it does.

[00:12:46]>> Thanks, Peter. I've got a question from Brian here. Um, he said he's just recently set up his FLHive brood boxes or his brood box, and the bees filled up three frames pretty quickly, but have since slowed. Should he be concerned or is that kind of just the natural order and progression of things?

[00:13:02]>> That's generally climatic. So, in order to get a lot of honey stores, you two things need to align. You need a lot of bees in your box. So, you could have a look at that. If the numbers are really dropping, that could be the issue. But more likely, it's there wasn't enough flowers for your bees to go and get around here. We get a real patchy season. At the moment, you've one week there'll be nectar coming in and next week, no. And then two weeks later, you've got more nectar again and so on.

[00:13:33]So it just es and flows almost all year round aside from spring where we get a deluge of honey where you've got a lot of things flowering. So more than likely it is the flowers available to the bees.

[00:13:49]But it's always useful to have a couple of hives. That way you can benchmark one might not be doing so well and another that really might be bringing in a lot of honey. You could also ask local beekeepers or chime in. And there's probably somebody watching the live stream that can let you know what the honey season is like in your area.

[00:14:09]Okay, we've got our smoker going, which is good. And we're going to blow a little smoke into this hive here.

[00:14:18]And if you need a beekeeping at this point, you want to be wearing your bee veil. Three good puffs in the entrance.

[00:14:25]And then you can leave the smoker there so that the returning foragers get that scent of smoke and that helps mask the alarm pheromone and that way you end up with uh calmer bees to do your brood inspection.

[00:14:42]Keep the questions coming in. Today we're discussing more than honey. People keep bees for all sorts of different reasons. Let us know what you love about beekeeping. Even if you don't have a hive, let us know whether it's the honey that attracts you or whether it's looking after bees or whether it's the pollinating of your garden and the surrounding area.

[00:15:05]>> Thanks, Peter. Jake's got a question.

[00:15:07]Um, when would it be appropriate to add a second brood box so if your colony doesn't run out of room? When is a good time to do that or consider that?

[00:15:14]Okay. So, I don't like to add a second brood box, but a lot of people do, especially in the colder areas because you often get a lot of honey stores in that second brood box, which can be really useful for a really long, cold, snowy winter. We don't get those here.

[00:15:30]We get good honey all through the winter. So, that's what you'll find in the subtropical and tropical regions.

[00:15:39]But in areas where you've got a long cold winter, then adding a second brood box is common. Generally, we don't like to add a second box, whether it be a super or a second brood box until the bees are using all of the frames in the bottom box here, which we'll have a look at in a second in this hive over here.

[00:16:00]Once they're using all of the frames and there's a lot of bees in there, that's when you add another box. Otherwise, you're giving them more space that they don't need, and that will just be harder for them to maintain their specific temperature to keep the young larae alive in the brood nest.

[00:16:20]Okay. So, using the super lifter, first of all, I've got a bit of a choice whether to open the hive in that direction or back this way. Now, I'm looking at this setup here, and we probably can open it in this way. We can put the leg on this rock. Let's see if that works out. If it doesn't, we can always swap to the other side. And we've made it versatile like that. So that depending on your setup, you might have a tree in the way, you might have a wall, a fence, and we wanted to make sure you could still use the Super Lifter no matter what your configuration.

[00:16:58]And we've made it also useful for Langstroth hives. chime in if you got a Langstroth hive and you're using our new super lifter. Now, before I start setting that up, because it really does a lot for you and opens the hive before you even know it, I'm going to put on my be bail. Making sure the center zip's done up. Making sure the two side ones are done up. This is the mesh jacket, and it's my go-to. I like to wear pants and a mesh jacket, and I always have my gloves at the ready for when you do have a hive that's a bit grumpy. If you're new to beekeeping, wear your gloves every time. So, the Super Lifter, step one, is written on the handles. You pull your hands apart. So, first of all, you making sure the logo's up the right way there. the words are up the right way.

[00:17:55]Grab your handles like that. Move your hands apart and roll your wrists in.

[00:17:59]That's what it should look like when you're attaching it to the hive.

[00:18:04]Step two is written on the lower brackets. We tried to make it step by step because it's not necessarily intuitive of how to connect it, but once you've got it, it's easy after that.

[00:18:16]Step three is up onto the upper load point screws.

[00:18:22]Step four here is lifting your pole leg.

[00:18:27]And you'll notice that we haven't even set it up yet, but it's already lifting the top box off the bottom. Now, interestingly, this is a strategic point we've put there specifically for when this happens. Sometimes you get the brood frames connecting to the excludder, but a little bit of a lever like this saves what was a real drama before is now easy. The bees don't much like it when the brood frames lift with the hive. And you can see the way they're coming out. They're a bit annoyed on this gray, rainy day. So, I'm going to see if I can get this to stay right here on the edge of this rock. Now, hopefully that will stay there. Notice we've put a a foot that adjusts angle, which is nice because the angle of this rock, it's set there. And we've also put a rubber grip on it so that if that was a slippery surface, it hopefully will stay there. So, we've tried to think of everything. and let's see how we go. Lifting the hive over now because I can already see that the bees aren't particularly happy being open on this gray rainy day. I'm going to add a bit more smoke, which when you know the bees are going to be a bit grumpy, then use a bit more smoke to mask that alarm pheromone and give a nice calming effect. Other bee books say that it's more about changing the bee's mood from one of protection to one of preparing for a bush fire. Now, whatever it is, we know that smoke works and is incredibly useful for both calming the hive and clearing bees out of the way. So, if you do have a bit of an aggressive hive, then just use more smoke. give yourself a nicer experience in really opening that hive. And also wear your gloves if you're new to beekeeping. Keep the questions coming in. Today we're discussing more than honey and the way that we all get fascinated about different aspects of beekeeping.

[00:20:54]Chime in. Let us know what it is about beekeeping that is enjoyable and fascinating to you.

[00:21:01]>> Yes, Cedar. I've got a question from Cody. He wants to know, "When you're opening up the hive to check on your bees, what are some of the best ways to tell if you have a queenless colony or one that may have recently replaced their queen?"

[00:21:14]>> Okay, queenless or recently replaced the queen.

[00:21:19]Now, we hope that superl stays on that rock down there. Beautiful.

[00:21:25]Be entertaining if it didn't, but we might damage this beautiful artwork here that Kate's done.

[00:21:31]So your question is whether to if how to tell whether the hive has recently replaced the queen. So let's think about that for a second.

[00:21:44]If you lose your queen, you're not going to have any young larae. Now if see they're going for my hands a little bit right now. We might add a little bit more smoke.

[00:21:58]As predicted, they're not so happy on this gray, windy day.

[00:22:04]Smoke your hands if you're not wearing gloves, and that will mask your own feromone. So, there's a few things to look at if if you if you want to ascertain how old the queen is or whether she's just recently been replaced. Perhaps you've got no young larae or or perhaps you're you're looking at the brood. If there was no young larae, you might say there's no laying queen if there's no eggs or no young larae. So she might be a virgin queen that hasn't started laying yet. So that's a very early stage. Then beyond that, it'll actually flip where you get young larae but no older uh capp brood because there's a little bit of a brood break between the two queens and they're laying. So that's one way you could tell. The other one is looking physically at the queen. So when she's new, she will be a bit more hairy.

[00:23:02]She'll be a little bit smaller. She'll may not have worn the hair off her thorax. That shiny back plate might be not quite so shiny yet. So all of these things will help you ascertain the age of the queen.

[00:23:21]Chime in if you've got any more pointers to spotting the age of the queen.

[00:23:26]Beekeepers will often mark the queen as well, in which case that color of the mark corresponds to how old she is. So that's one thing you can really do if you want to get a bit more scientific about it is mark your queens with the right color marker for that year. That way you can tell straight away when she's been superseded.

[00:23:50]Okay, we're going to pull out a a few frames here and have a look at what's going on. Now, we do have a nice set of frame rests. Thank you, Lauren, for uh grabbing them.

[00:24:04]And we'll attach them to the side of the hive here so that you can get a good look at the frames and it's an easy spot to to rest those uh frames because it's really useful to pull out a couple while and that gives you space to pull out the next ones.

[00:24:31]Now the bees are still a bit twitchy.

[00:24:33]They're giving me little warnings on my hands. If I was sensible, I'd put my gloves on. So, I'll do that now.

[00:24:41]And that will minimize the likelihood of stings on my hands.

[00:24:48]Gray, windy, rainy days. The text books are correct on that. And uh we've got more on that in our own book, Flowhives Book of Bees and Beekeeping, which came out earlier this year.

[00:25:02]Let us know if you've seen that book.

[00:25:06]Okay, keep the questions coming in.

[00:25:11]>> Yeah, Cedar, I've got one from Lucky Girl. She's asking, "Do you need to buy bees to put in your FLHive for the first time or will the bees just show up if you build it? If you build it, they will come." So, while there is a thing called a bait hive where you build your brood box and you strategically place it in the springtime and you might be lucky a swarm of bees move right in, generally we rely on getting bees from another beehive to get started. And that can be in the form of purchasing what's called a nucleus, which is uh four or five of these frames already happening with a queen laying her eggs, honey stores, pollen stores, everything a hive needs.

[00:25:53]But it's just a small little box full.

[00:25:55]And you can take that to your place, situate it where you want to put your hive, and then on a nice warm sunny day, get in your bee suit, get out your smoker, transfer them to your brood box, and look after them, and they'll grow from there. If you dial back two live Q&As's, so two weeks ago, you'll see us installing a nucleus into a FLHive brood box for the first time. So, that might be a good one to look at how you install your bees into the hive. You can also take a split from somebody else's hive, which is taking some of the frames out, putting them into your hive. If they got eggs down the cells, they'll normally raise their own queen, which is handy, and look after them and they'll grow from there. Another one is catching a swarm where if you're feeling adventurous in the springtime, you can shake a swarm of bees into your box, take that home, and you can start from just simply a swarm. Or there's also a thing called a package of bees, which is an artificial swarm a beekeeper made by shaking a whole lot of bees into a box and sending that to you often in the mail.

[00:27:08]So, few options there, but the nucleus or knuck it sometimes gets called Nuc is the easiest way to get started with your bees in your hive.

[00:27:19]How long do the bees live for and how long can you keep a single hive going?

[00:27:25]>> So, the bees have varied ages. So, while the worker bees, which are the ones you're seeing here, have a short life because they're working so hard. They fly their little wings off and they might only live four to six weeks. So that's a pretty short turnaround. But lucky for the hive and us, the queen is laying thousands of eggs a day to keep that population up. But the queen, she can live for up to six years. Normally two or three or four, but sometimes six years. So, it's amazing that they both start out with identical genetics. The worker bee and the queen, but a queen didn't get fed plant proteins in the form of their pollen bee bread. It got fed royal jelly for its entire gestation. And that is the way they can turn any young larae into a queen when they want to. So any young worker be larae I should clarify the males the unfertilized ones actually don't uh they obviously can't turn into a queen. Now this is a great frame of brood I pulled out. This hive is absolutely going to boom soon because you've got brood all the way across that side of the frame.

[00:28:53]So every single cell there is a worker bee waiting to emerge.

[00:28:59]Same on the other side. You see beautiful clockwork brood pattern there. And you look at that, you go, "What a great queen." So this is where beekeeping gets fascinating. Tell learning to tell the difference, looking in at the world of the bees and really being curious about why and what and how.

[00:29:27]and it becomes a fascinating never- ending learning journey. I'll put that one here for you to have a look at and I'll pull out some more frames.

[00:29:37]>> How often do you need to open up your hive and inspect the frames? Is it a weekly thing, monthly, and how long would it take to to do it if you're if you're checking regularly? So you can check every week if you want to, but it's not necessarily what you need to be doing. So I do really recommend in the beginning, especially when the colon is nice and small, to get your confidence up. Really check weekly if you if you want to and learn as much as you can and get confident in doing your brood inspections. However, it's not necessarily it not necessary usually to get into your hive that often. And chime in. Let us know how often you do your brood inspections on your hive.

[00:30:29]Got a question from Josh here. He's uh having some luck getting his FLHives all set up. He said the bees are filling the flow frames nicely and he's checked all six frames today, but he noticed the bees have filled and almost capped the outer frames, but the inner frames have um the bees have only filled kind of the outer cells. Do you have any advice for that or is it just kind of a waiting game?

[00:30:49]>> Uh it's a bit of a a waiting game. Now, genetics does play a part that you get the odd hive that doesn't like to fill the extremities of the flow frames, which can be annoying because you're waiting waiting, but they just won't fill it. But generally, they will as soon as they get enough of a flow, and you can use those windows on the rear and the sides to really give you a good indication of when it's time to harvest.

[00:31:14]If you're getting impatient, if you see some full frames in the middle, you can just go ahead and harvest some. And one of the really nice versatile things about the FLHive is you can harvest just part of a frame or all of a frame depending on uh whether you think you need to leave some honey for the bees. And that is really the seasonality. Now, as predicted, it's been a very rainy time.

[00:31:45]The sun's popped out now, which is nice, but it's a very windy day. The bees aren't very happy about it. So, we can see straight away that there is a lot of brood. We know this colony is booming.

[00:32:02]We're going to put it back together now because the bees aren't particularly loving an inspection on such a windy gray day. So, if we can, we put them back in the same order.

[00:32:20]So, this one goes here. And look at all of that beautiful brood there. It's uh incredible to really see that clockwork brood pattern. It's when you say she's a keeper.

[00:32:38]Okay, keep the questions coming in.

[00:32:40]Today, we're discussing more than honey.

[00:32:44]looking at all the aspects of beekeeping that people enjoy. Chime in. Let us know what it is about beekeeping that attracts you. Is it the honey? Is it the pollination? Is it the learning? Is it the family activity? Is it the the uh pastime that takes you away from the humrum of life?

[00:33:06]Let us know what it is in the comments.

[00:33:09]>> Yeah. and keep keep asking those questions. We'll keep answering them as we go.

[00:33:16]>> I've got a question here. Someone's concerned that um there might not be enough flowers in the area surrounding the hive for the bees to pollinate. What do you do in that situation?

[00:33:27]Okay. So, if you don't have enough flowers around and you believe your bees are starving, then you can feed them sugar syrup. So, that is a typical thing to do if a beekeeper is looking after their hives and the hive is approaching. Let's say you've got a long winter ahead, maybe some snow, and you know that there's not many honey stores in the hive. You've had a look, they're a bit dry on the edges, there's no honey stores, then feeding the bees some sugar syrup is a great idea. It's much better than letting them starve during that long winter ahead. So to feed them prior to a long winter, and it's best to feed them prior if you can, so they can build up their stores, you'll be using two parts sugar, one part water, and that's called a thick syrup. And you can put that in any type of feeder. We've got videos showing you how to make those. And you can feed from under the roof here and feed them that sugar syrup to build up their stores for a long uh cold winter. Other times, beekeepers will feed dry sugar, which is very easy to do. You can simply pull the plug in the inner cover and put some dry sugar up there. Other other times, uh, beekeepers will be feeding a fondant, which they can then chew on during the winter as well. So, there's all of these options for you if you think your bees just aren't finding enough flowers producing nectar and you're worried about the stores because after all, their honey stores is for them to survive when there's no flowers around.

[00:35:10]Yeah, I've got a question here. Cedar, someone's asking, um, do you how do you keep the bees from getting squished when you're putting things back together? I see you're using a lot of smoke, but do you ever get any casualties or how do you avoid that?

[00:35:22]>> So, it's pretty hard to avoid any casualties. You can see there's some here from from last time. And it depends how you're beekeeping. So, I if you want to do it in a more gentle way, you can, but it takes more time. And and as a beekeeper, we have gotten used to a few casualties because the uh well, not because, but it just so happens that bees have a quick turnover. The queen's laying thousands of eggs a day. There's thousands of new uh bees emerging from their cells as well. If you look at all of those brood cellves we were looking at earlier, and uh so it doesn't affect the hive too much, but it's more of a personal thing.

[00:36:05]Do you want to spend the time uh making sure you're not squashing any bees? And I like to, and it's one of the reasons why we designed this superlifter the way we did, so that you could do a nice controlled closure. Let me show you how to do that now.

[00:36:20]The only spot that is going to touch down is this edge with this one. And then you can do a nice controlled close after that where we're slowly closing the rest of the hive. So using a bit of smoke or you can use your bee brush and you can physically remove the bees from that area. Now if I then get our super lifter and I'm holding the handle here and making sure there's no bees right in the way. See one bee just walked out. So I'm waiting for a second and choosing that moment. Or you might decide to flick those ones away and find that moment where you've got come on out of the way. That's it. And now we've touched down at the back here. And what we have which is very unique to the superl is a very controlled closure which just wasn't possible before.

[00:37:20]putting the hive back together before you're waddled up with your big heavy hive, which could weigh an enormous amount if it's full of honey and there's no choice but to drop it right on whatever bees are there and then move the hive into position by wiggling it and so on. And that was why we got inspired to design the superl. Now you see here we've got some bees just on this edge. So, we want to use our smoke and our bee brush to really get those bees out of the way as we close. And you can take as much time as you like. Slowly closing because it's a progressive close towards this edge here. So, if I take the weight here and collapse this leg, I can even roll that around.

[00:38:10]And what we have here is a system that when I drop this, you see the close happening. So that's become a very nice, well appreciated feature of the lifter.

[00:38:24]If I use some smoke, the bees will clear out of the way. Now, with a really busy colony, it gets harder, of course, but a little bit of smoke is what you need to get the bees out of the way. And you can see see how there's no bees there now apart from the odd one appearing. So I'm going to slowly close.

[00:38:47]And looking at the other side too, which is clear. And you're choosing that moment just to close the hive in a controlled way without all of those bees getting squished like they used to when I would waddle up with the huge heavy box of honey. Then it's a case of taking your superlifter off which can then go to your next hive or you can pack it away like this and put it back in the bag. We also got these handles here which help if you really want a nice gentle lift. And if you're using if you're lifting double boxes, then these handles are a must because that'll give you that extra leverage to lift a double 10 frame super in one go. And that just really saves a lot of uh putting back those boxes as well and saves a lot of time. So keep those questions coming in.

[00:39:48]Let us know whether you have our superlifter, what you think of it, and also chime in. Let us know what it is about beekeeping that attracts you to beekeeping.

[00:40:00]>> Yeah, Linda says, "It's just the bees for me." That's her response to the joy of beekeeping. Uh, but Greywolf also wants to know, "How would you swap out brood frames to prevent swarming next season? Or when what are the signs that you look for to know if you need to split a hive or swap out frames?" What do you look for in that situation?

[00:40:18]Okay. So, if you've got a a a springtime, then we generally do what's called spring management, which as you say is splitting hives, swapping out frames, and so on. And the primary reason we're doing that is to lessen the congestion in the hive so that your queen has plenty of cells to lay in and the hive is less crowded and that way it is far less likely to swarm. Now bees will naturally swarm which is dividing their colony in half. Half the bees will push out the old queen. and they'll go and find a new home, a new cavity somewhere to set up their new shop. But that is a bit annoying for us as beekeepers cuz all of a sudden the numbers of bees in your hive halves and that's when the colon is a bit weak and more susceptible to things like hive beetle attack and stuff like that. So, in the springtime, we get ahead of the curve and we do our spring management by either taking splits, which is my favorite go-to method where we're taking half the frames out of the bottom box and putting them in another one and we're starting a new hive, which is fantastic cuz you get another hive or if you don't want that hive, somebody else surely will. So, that's a great thing to be doing to increase the population and numbers of hives.

[00:41:43]Now, if you don't want to do that, you can add another box as we were talking about earlier by adding another brood box or another honey super. Either one will provide more space in the hive and limit that primary swarming trigger of getting overcrowded in your hive. So, the windows actually become extremely useful as well to gauge how crowded the hive is. Now, if we were looking in this window and we couldn't see the comb for the bees, then that's a sure sign that the hive is getting very crowded. And if it's springtime or even early summer, the likelihood of them swarming is quite high. So, that's when we get in there, we make more space in one way or another. You also mentioned swapping out combs which is a great thing to be doing as well which has two twofold uh benefits there. One is you are making space in the in the hive if you're putting fresh frames in or if you're using naturally drawn comb like I like to and you can cut out the old comb right there in the field. You're taking frames from the edge which don't have brood in them and putting that empty one back towards the center of the brood nest. And that really frees up more space. They'll be quick to draw some more comb for the queen to lay eggs in.

[00:43:06]But it also has the effect of taking away some of the old wax, which is a great thing to be doing when the cells get really old and dark. They've been used for raising brood so many times that the wax is potentially building up pathogens. So freshening up freshening up that brood nest by taking away some old frames or cutting out some comb is a great thing to be doing in the springtime as well. So all of these things are part of our spring management and if you're in the northern hemisphere you'll be well underway with that now.

[00:43:46]Okay. So, we're going to answer a couple more questions as we pack up this honey harvest. Now, I can see that uh Sophie put this cover on for me, which is great because we did get a couple of interested bees coming for the honey.

[00:44:05]That sometimes happens, especially when the bees are hungry.

[00:44:10]Now, a little tip here to finish off your harvest. You go back to a 90. You take the key out. You put it in the top slot all the way to the back till you feel it stop. Then to a 90 again. Now what that has done is it's pushed all of the parts back into self-formed position. Instead of being zigzagging channels, they're pushed back into proper cell shape. Now, leaving the key there for a minute or two really helps make sure they're all set in the correct position for the bees to use and will make sure you don't get downstream issues of cells out of line.

[00:44:50]Okay, we've got our little caps here, which we can now do the hot swap. We could leave it there for a while longer, collect probably the remaining jar full, or we could let the rest go back to the bees. We've designed a little system.

[00:45:05]The remaining honey will go back to the bees through what we call the little leak back point, which saves you having to think about that. Now, there are two, three bees in the honey. So, to get them out, I'm just going to fish them out like this. And I'll put them back on the landing board. those bees will be find.

[00:45:28]And the other bees will clean them up quite quickly, which is one of the things bees are very good at is cleaning up honey. Let's see if I can get that one back onto the landing board there. And there you go.

[00:45:47]If you have a look at that, the bees will be quickly cleaning them up and those bees will be fine.

[00:45:57]Okay, so that's it. Our honey harvest is complete. Don't forget to put the little top cap in. Close up all your covers. So that's what we call the key access cover there. We've also got our rear cover, which is also our shelf. And we've got this beautiful jar of honey to take back to the kitchen.

[00:46:23]And it is amazing just how pure and clean the honey comes out of a FLHive, which has attracted a lot of attention, including university studies showing that honey harvested with a FLHive actually contains higher floral notes. So zero processing.

[00:46:47]It's only gravity that's got the honey from your hive into the jar. So, it's not touching all of the conventional quit equipment touch points all along the way, therefore retaining a higher flavor profile.

[00:47:03]I'm going to put this rear cover back on. And that's it. and thank the bees for uh their extraordinary work in both pollinating up to a a 6 mile 10 km radius around your hive and also the extraordinary amount of honey they make.

[00:47:25]>> Oh, we love bees. Um for someone that's interested in getting started, Kaset wants to know, "What tools and essential equipment do you need to get going?"

[00:47:33]>> Okay, so first and foremost, you need your flhive. Now, we've built a lot of things into the hive, which means you don't need a lot of the conventional processing equipment anymore. So, we've also built a into the base of your hive a pest management tray. So, our FLHive 2 and FLHive 2 Plus, which I really recommend you do get, has a nice pest management tray down here, which helps you look after your bees. It's uh so what you need to do to get started is get your hive, put it together, put your favorite coat on the outside, then install your bees, which you should get locally. And the only other things you really need is your beuit and gloves, of course. And we have all of this for you in some nice bundles on the website. So, you've got your beuit, you've got your gloves, and you while you can get the caddy as well, a handy little tool box, it's not essential, but you will need a smoker.

[00:48:40]And you will need your JHive tool, which I have just misplaced somewhere.

[00:48:47]I probably left it over here when I was beekeeping.

[00:48:52]Now, a bee brush isn't essential either, but it's a nice to have.

[00:48:58]And the Jhive tool. So, really, what you see here is your FLHive complete with our flow frames, which means you don't need uh honey centrifug, you don't need decapping benches, you don't need uh scrapers, you don't need saves and buckets and all of the things that went along with conventional processing. You don't need a room to maintain all of that equipment in. It's all right here built into your hive in this small little nice form factor.

[00:49:29]So, you need your hive, your bees, your Jhive tool, your smoker, your beuit, and gloves.

[00:49:38]>> There you go.

[00:49:39]>> Thanks for watching.

[00:49:41]Tune in again. Or did you have one more question? I can see that look on your face.

[00:49:45]>> Yeah. Luca just wants to know if we sell FLHives in Africa.

[00:49:50]>> We do. So, if you're in in one of the more hard-to-reach areas, get in contact and our amazing support team will work with you to get your FLHive to you. Now, depending on where you are in Africa, there's even some sub uh species of apus maleifera. There we have the the Cape Honeybee in South Africa, which has been proven to work with the FLHive as well.

[00:50:16]So let us know how you go with your FLHive in Africa. Thanks for tuning in same time next week and let us know what you like about bees and beekeeping. What it is that really attracts you to it and it's often more than honey.

[00:50:36]Same time. Next