The 42-Day Old Bee/Honey-Producing Strategy!!

Ajouté : 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey beekeepers, we're here in the apiary today because where else would a beekeeper be, right?

[00:00:06]Right. Well, there's actually other places, but we're in the apiary here today because we're going to be talking about the 42-day-old bee.

[00:00:14]A concept that some people call the 21-day-old bee, but I feel it's a little misleading and I'm going to tell you why today.

[00:00:22]We're going to be reading from resource equalization strategies for creating an apiary resource network today. So, this is something you can find in the description if it sounds interesting to you. If it doesn't, you can skip that.

[00:00:37]So, stick around. Here in a minute, we're going to talk about the 42-day-old bee as a honey producing strategy.

[00:00:51]Hey beekeepers, welcome back to The Hive Doctor. When it comes to strategies for producing honey, you can never know enough, right? It's always neat to find out what someone else may do or know so that you can decide whether or not you want to apply it to your own operation or not and move on to the next idea.

[00:01:11]Well, today we're talking about a concept that's fairly new to me. It was introduced to me by my Oklahoma beekeeping mentor, Chester Howe, of Tops Outdoor Adventures on YouTube. Check him out. But, I've also recently seen this concept shared on YouTube as the 21-day-old bee.

[00:01:30]And I find that a little misleading like I mentioned in the intro here because that's not quite the bee that we're talking about.

[00:01:37]The bee that we're talking about begins as an egg, not the day that it emerged as a full-grown adult. So, I'm going to be talking about what was written in here. Let's see, I think we're on page 51 or something like that.

[00:01:53]About the 42-day-old bee. Now, remember this is a honey producing strategy and here's the idea behind it.

[00:02:01]Now, we all know that honeybee colonies divvy up the chores and the tasks according to the age of the bee.

[00:02:09]For the most part of my career, I've ignored what those are. Like I knew we've got nurse bees, we've got guard bees, we've got house bees, we've got take out the dead bees. And then of course we've got forager bees and you know what? There's others as well. I think it's kind of argued that there's somewhere between 10 and 14 different roles of the honeybee as they grow older.

[00:02:32]They start as the nurse bees and they end as foragers cuz they literally work themselves to death.

[00:02:39]And so there's a ton of other little tasks in between those two.

[00:02:42]But it hasn't been until this year, my 26th year in beekeeping, that I've actually wanted to learn more about it because I think the strategies of understanding a honeybee's role can help me in the way that I manage them. It means I'm working with them because I know them better.

[00:02:59]And since I've become really well familiar Is that a Do you say that? Well familiar?

[00:03:05]Because I've become more familiar with the environment that dictates and influences my colonies, I feel that I can implement this plan really well when it comes to producing more honey. And more honey for not just for me, but for my bees as well.

[00:03:23]Now, for the sake of just simplifying things, a bee doesn't become a forager until they're about 21 days old. That's where that 21-day old title that I was telling you about comes into play.

[00:03:36]It's about when a bee reaches 21 days old, they go out and they forage for pollen, nectar, even resins for propolis, bring it home and glue things shut to make it harder on the beekeeper.

[00:03:48]Just kidding, you know, that's how they make their their home healthy.

[00:03:52]But with that 21-day number in mind, you know, 3 weeks, what does it take to know that since that's how old a bee has to be before they become a forager, and I want enough bees by the time I have my first flow, when does the queen need to start laying all those eggs in order for me to have enough population density of foragers in my hive old enough to go and get that nectar during the flow? That's the big question here.

[00:04:27]And so since we also know that from egg to adult is another 21-day old phase of the honey bee life, that brings us to 42 days. And just in case I've moved a little bit too fast, I'm going to restate that. So when a queen lays an egg, it takes 21 days for that egg to fully develop from egg to larva to pupa to fully emerged adult 21 days later.

[00:04:56]Then their life cycle as an adult begins from that day for another 21 days, roughly speaking, until they start foraging for resources. So that's how we came to 42 days. Now imagine if I need a bee that old in here in time for my flow, and let's say that the flow around here uh it it varies, but it's pretty much around the same time of year, but I'm going to use the calendar as an example even though I don't believe the bees use the calendar at all. That's a completely arbitrary uh way of keeping track of seasons and time, totally man-made.

[00:05:36]But let's say May 1st. Just for the sake of an example, let's say my flow begins May 1st.

[00:05:42]That means May 1st, I need to have for a lot of 42-day-old bees in here for at least the the duration of the flow. So, that's the earliest is going to be that means my queen has got to start laying 42 days before May 1st. That's 6 weeks. That puts me back in the middle of March.

[00:06:06]So, what is it going to take for me to have a queen just going to town inside the colony here laying eggs so that I have them in time for the flow. It means they need to feel like they have the resources. And what is it exactly that comes into a colony that makes them feel like they can increase their egg-laying rate?

[00:06:26]It's going to be pollen. Because pollen is the protein that builds bees.

[00:06:31]And so by the middle of March is when she's needs to be start doing that, when she needs to start feeling like she's got the resources to pick up the egg-laying rate.

[00:06:40]And so the idea is that she has food before that period so she can start laying a lot of eggs by the middle of March.

[00:06:54]So, this is where late winter to early spring supplemental feeding comes into play.

[00:07:03]Pollen may or may not be available at this point, you know, in your area, in my area, or it might and the weather just simply doesn't allow the bees to get out and forage for it. It might be a lot of rain. It could be too cold still.

[00:07:15]Which is why we want to put in our own supplemental nutrient-rich food, usually in the form of pollen patties.

[00:07:24]And this is ideally what's going to give our bees the upper hand to create a or to to produce a larger crop than we ever have before because we are timing it because of the timing of that we're supporting an an increased egg-laying rate earlier for our purposes, especially if the hive was insulated during those colder months. If your colony was insulated during the colder months, no matter where you live, I feel like they're going to come through with a larger population, a lower mite count, and ready to get to work.

[00:07:59]So, the idea behind this is to start feeding the queen the queen, huh?

[00:08:05]Start feeding the colony a nutrient-rich pollen patty about 3 weeks to a month before the middle of March. That way, they've got time to chew it apart, consume some, store some, whatever the bees do to use a pollen patty. They have time to do that, so that by the time the middle of March comes around, they feel like they've got enough resources to take that risk, that gamble, to invest into a higher egg-laying rate, so that they can invest also into their future population.

[00:08:40]A population that's going to make them, and you, and me more honey in a timely manner when it matters the most.

[00:08:48]Have you ever had like a hive that just seemed like it was boiling over with bees during a flow, but it didn't seem like they were really making much honey?

[00:08:58]Surprisingly enough, that has a lot to do with not having age-appropriate bees to go out and forage and bring that honey home, that nectar to, you know, turn into honey.

[00:09:10]I've seen that time and time again, and in the past, I've never correlated it to having age-appropriate bees for that purpose. So, that's where the 42-day-old bee comes into play.

[00:09:22]All right, so my example with May flow, and the middle of March, getting making sure that the the queen is laying lots of eggs, but just an example. So, that's for my area, that works out just great. But for your area, if you're not sure when your first flow starts, ask a local beekeeper that's experienced with when the flow begins, and then count back 6 weeks, and then that previous month, just feed them a bunch of pollen patties.

[00:09:49]Do it in strips. Don't do it all at once, otherwise you're giving hive beetle larva a chance to take a hold in the colony. I love to give mine like like usually usually they come like in a 1-lb patty. I'll cut that up into eighths or fourths and give them just one at a time. Once they finish that, I'll give them another. That way the bees have a chance to use it, and the beetles don't have a chance to take a foothold in your colony.

[00:10:14]I personally like to use HiveAlive because of its nutrient-dense ingredients.

[00:10:21]It's got research backing its ability to boost colonies and even improve honey yields.

[00:10:29]And you can you can use my discount code for that. It should be down in the description below and get 10% off of your order. In the meantime, if if you're interested in learning more about natural resources of the apiary and supplemental resources, knowing when to use them, and for the different strategies that we beekeepers use, then totally check out my book, Resource Equalization, Strategies for Creating an Apiary Resource Network for you and your operation. You can find the paperback You can find a link to the paperback version down in the description, or if you're an ebook kind of person, that link is down there as well.

[00:11:07]Either way, appreciate your support if you decide to go this route. If not, that's totally cool, too. I'm just here to help make the path easier for beekeepers that have come after me, and even I learn from beginners today.

[00:11:21]So, none of us are above learning, no matter how many years of experience that we may have.

[00:11:27]It's my goal for this YouTube channel to support you guys, and you [music] watching me supports me. So, like I said, we're in this together.

[00:11:35]Thank you guys for watching today. I'll show you this book [music] cover up close. I'll see you guys in the next video.

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