[GregB]

One of my favorite v-bloggers put up a video - English-speaking visitors to his super-deep log hive operation.
Good overview of his project.
The audio is not great, unfortunately.
Well, here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liV5grHI3XI

 

[little_john]

Greg - are you sure that's the right link ? What I'm seeing is a Beekeeping Exhibition. Some very nice product presentations - but not in English, unfortunately ...
LJ

 

[GregB]

Greg - are you sure that's the right link ? What I'm seeing is a Beekeeping Exhibition. Some very nice product presentations - but not in English, unfortunately ...
LJ

OOPS!
Wrong paste and not testing it.
Should be this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jCxZorRINY

 

[msl]

Nice!

as always your youtube posts send me down a rabbit hole clicking the side links
I keep runing in to variants of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yid34CVum0 in bolh wood and foam, and what seemed to be a pre cut commercial one


now this guy puts the mini in mini nuc (at about 6:30) or was it some kind of shipping box? "Mini nucleus" was said, but I don't know the context and can't think of any outher reason for the landing board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkeIPPiIddc
makes a Klindworth look large ! by chance could you give us the cliff notes?

 

[GregB]

Nice!
.......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkeIPPiIddc
makes a Klindworth look large ! by chance could you give us the cliff notes?

MSL, I did not forget; just the time.....
Will comment eventually.

The guy did say - this is exactly the way how in the former USSR they used to raise tens of thousands of the queens.
You know, the USSR scale (rockets, sputniks, and all).

Funny, I have seen this vid long ago.
But just now I picked up a very cool hack - at about the minute 4, etc.
Stupid simple.
Those support brackets.
Why did I not think of this!!

 

[GregB]

..............."Mini nucleus" was said, but I don't know the context and can't think of any outher reason for the landing board
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkeIPPiIddc
makes a Klindworth look large ! by chance could you give us the cliff notes?

The video titles:
"It takes only 10 bees to mate a queen".
"A little-known way of mating the queens in nuclei the size of several matchboxes !!! For settlement you need only 10 young bees.
The costs of a bee and feed for flying around one queen are so small that they can be called microscopic.
This is possible only with a large investment of time by the beekeeper, but the result is worth it.
Having 5-10 bee colonies, it is possible to breed the queens in thousands !!!!!!"

Now, my comments based on the audio:
0. Per the comments, the author really did this out of desperate need to grow fast; he did not have many bees initially.
1. Prep the boxes similar to presented (no need for the landing board, honestly - IMO; just make the entrance for 1-2 bees and make it higher on the wall; the wall itself will be your landing pad; the board might help the queen for landing, but I would not even bother).
2. Just as presented, glue to the both walls small sections of some comb (ideally with some honey/pollen); place some candy/sugar/syrup into the feeding area
3. Place a very, very ripe QC into the box - basically, ready to go (not specified how - whatever works that does not damage the queen).
4. Catch 10 very young bees (2-3 days old) and place them with the QC. These will be your queen attendants and they will feed the queen.
5. Number each box and mark a prepared base board with the same exact number - this will be the base where this exact micro-nuc will be placed during the day for the queen to be flying.
This numbering is important - not to move the nuc around.
6. For the night, you collect all the micro-nucs into a box and put them away into a conditioned place where they stay warm (they are unable to condition their micro-nuc).
For the day, you set them out into a shaded area (again, they can not condition themselves and will overheat and bake).
7. Repeat the setting out/taking inside until the queens are mated (not specified how you know - I guess the queens will just start laying into those micro-combs).
8. The mated queens are ready to be deployed/sold/etc

9. The micro-nuc itself can be used to introduce the queen - just staple some screen onto it - let the target hive get used to the queen via the screen - then let her out.
Or use the micro-nuc as a shipping/transport container (this is my addition).

The End.

 

[msl]

Thank you!
I hadn't been able to put the numbed stand and the blue box full of nucs in a way that made sense
the as a frightfully small nuc....

 

[little_john]

as always your youtube posts send me down a rabbit hole clicking the side links I

Me too. (Well done, Greg)
At the moment I'm downloading a couple which I think are about making DIY embossed foundation and. although foundation isn't 'my thing', I love to see new methods of DIY-ing just about anything ...

Seems there's a rich untapped vein of valuable ideas and methods coming from Russia and surrounding countries - what we need now is a full-time Russian-English translator !

'best
LJ

 

[GregB]

Thank you!
I hadn't been able to put the numbed stand and the blue box full of nucs in a way that made sense
the as a frightfully small nuc....

I would call it - "mating jumbo queen cage", MSL.
Actually, this is a brilliant idea.
Just think of all possible use-cases.
Well, most all cases were presented to us right in the video.

Now - this is a dirt-cheap approach.
Thinking about this one, cause I could do it too.
For example, as a small-scale homesteader, I use my splits as de-facto mating nucs.
If my split fails to mate the queen, that it wasted time/resources (end up combining or retrying again for another mating).
Happens every season; this season too.

Well, all I have to do - run 2-3 of these "mating jumbo queen cages" per a split - a guarantied mated queen for every split (any extra mated queens - put up for local sale).
The drawback - I can not just "set-it-and-forget-it" - this works with the splits (will not work with the "mating cages").

BUT - I can totally run the "mating cages" directly from my back porch - now, that should not take a lot of time/labor.

MSL, Thanks for pointing this video out!
I, in fact, just took it as a curios hack when I saw it the first time and moved along.
Well, there is more to it.
This is NOT just a curious hack.
This, in fact, could out-do the Sam Comfort's hacks.

 

[GregB]

....- what we need now is a full-time Russian-English translator !

'best
LJ

I kinda been substituting I guess.
Guess, this could be my retirement niche one day - a translator who actually knows few things about the translation subject matter (some of the translations I find are just riddled with the errors and unneeded politics).

There is endless supply of excellent resources to be translated - actually, BOTH ways.
Just a shame, so much valuable information goes unknown due to the language barriers.

 

[GregB]

Thank you!
I hadn't been able to put the numbed stand and the blue box full of nucs in a way that made sense
the as a frightfully small nuc....

PS:
I am sure you noticed the arrows on the numbered stand too;
the direction of the flights are important too - but you knew this already;
both the numbers and the arrows are important;
and, of course, the landing board and/or the front walls of the "mating cages" are painted in alternating colors - pretty obvious - a typical mating station setup.

I am just saying these obvious things for the narration completeness.

 

[GregB]

......
I keep runing in to variants of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yid34CVum0 in bolh wood and foam, and what seemed to be a pre cut commercial one

As far as this one, the v-blogger is a well-regarded queen producer for the Carpathian bees (always sold out, pretty much).

He does all kinds of things - the varous nucs and the large horizontal resource hives are his staple.
He is also an excellent wood worker (does fine furniture - forget the hives).

Just click about his channel - all good stuff.
He speaks Ukrainian though, if this matters.

 

[msl]

The drawback - I can not just "set-it-and-forget-it" - this works with the splits (will not work with the "mating cages").

the foam hives I linked may better(and still Russian...lol).. after last years experiment with wood topbar minys pointing the way , I had very good luck with ye-old mass produced (made in china) foam minis and virgins .. sure 600 bees is a bit more then 10.. but the set and forget, and the 85%+ success rate made the ROI good, as did turning them for 3 cycles of queens with out having to add new bees.

I think the mini nuc is way under valued by the backyard beekeeper.. they are being told "those things are for commercial beekeepers"...
well those things are for those who need to do more with less, and who has less then the guy(or gal) with a hive or 2 in their back yard ?

every wasted queen cell means another queen raised in the sun belt and bred for almonds starts throwing drones in your area
Push in cages around cells and installing virgins into minis (and sharing your excess) is how we can bring back "heirloom" type bees... who cares if the tomato cant ship well(aka build up in time for February Almonds?) if it tastes good and grows good in my back yard.


I have Egyptian(top setting) onions and aloe plants that trace there line 50+ years and thousands of miles back in my family. Sure those onions have no market value to walmart... but that first taste of green coming up threw the snow (with no inputs from me) means a lot to me, and when my daughter gets a sun burn, cut, or scraped knee her great grandmas aloe is there for her, as it was for me, and my mother before me

I dream of a day...when we get real about mite resistant local stocks... and can use what we have before us (mirco grafting, caging swarm cells, 48 hour cells, mini nucs, virgin queens, etc) to trade bee genetics like gardener's trade plant cuttings and seeds...

Just think of all possible use-cases.

oh I did, that's why I asked for help with the details.

side bar, I see no reason to leave the nuc out side the 1st week.. keep it "conditioned" til she is ready to fly, whe have seen a proper cage and 5 attendants is enuff for 100% virgin survival when kept at room temp https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3500331/

 

[GregB]

the foam hives I linked may better(and still Russian...lol).. ...

These all good ideas and comments, MSL.

Practically speaking (and not creating much custom equipment either) - I guess am pretty happy with 1-frame mating nucs based on a standard frames/boxes.
Thinking about now - I had two successful 1-frame matings this season.
And these can be "set-it-and-forget-it" on a remote yard too.
Suppose, not a bad deal either.
Actually, any cardboard box that fits a standard frame - makes a perfect mating nucs - so that is quite cheap/efficient.
I got lots of cardboard boxes for that.
Really, why - the cardboard boxes should work perfectly for one month mating project around the standard frames (weather protection granted; homesteader scale).

 

[msl]

the cardboard boxes should work perfectly for one month mating project

page 2
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/American_Bee_Journal/ABJ2010-07.pdf

so that is quite cheap/efficient

yes and no... a foam mini takes 600 bees to stock, a 60% frame of brood and cover bees is about 6,000 bees(once emerged)

So to place 10 cells, your saving the = of 9 frames of brood/bees.. those 9 frames could be in 2 resource hives witch would grow at about 2 frames of bees a week while keeping the brood frames "refiled" so you grow resources instead of burning them while your waiting for the queen to start laying.

Another way to look at it is opportunity costs and false economy ... packages hit $150 last year... spit ball $30 for the queen so $40 a pound, 3500 bees a pound, so 1.14 cents a bee call the advrage live span 5 weeks (as some/many are older bees), you use up 2 weeks of the bees life to mate the queen.
That's $27.36 in "bee labor" to mate a queen for the single frame
$2.74 for a mini

Mean while the 2 resource hives you made out of the brood using a mated queen (instead of using it for nucs) have been growing at about 500 bees per day, per hive ... that's 14,000 bees or about $160 in gained resources..

A 10 nucs at $27.36 with a 80% return rate cost you $273.60 for 8 queens... $34.20 each

B 10 nucs at $2.74 with (lets just say) 60% return rate cost you $27.36... $3.90 a queen, even if you add in the cost a of the $11 foam minis (ebay) Vs the cost of the "free" cardboard, your just barely above 1/2 the cost... and payed for new gear .
now the 2 resource hives took a few queens from an early run in some nice warm foam mins so call that $8.

so B= $110 in foam nucs(far less if you make them as shown), $27.36 in bee labor, + $8 in bee labor to produce 6 queens @ a value of $30 each (180) and $160 worth of bees to make splits with is a $202.64 gain in value and a $340 gain in bees

A= $273.60 in bee labor to produce 8 queens at a value of $240, a loss of -$33.6

So in A you imputed $110 in to nucs that will give you years of service and tripled your investment Vs, B the "free" cardboard box nucs that cost you value.

it gets even worse when you have to make up for the failures...
I can spilt a mini 2 maby 3 ways with ease... a single frame..not so much I have to pull from some were.. then thermal issues, the cost of a later start to the season...ect

 

[GregB]

page 2
http://www.wicwas.com/sites/default/files/articles/American_Bee_Journal/ABJ2010-07.pdf


yes and no... a foam mini takes 600 bees to stock, a 60% frame of brood and cover bees is about 6,000 bees(once emerged)

By cardboard I mean these:

I kept up to 4-5 full frame nucs in computer boxes - no problem.
Bees will chew the paper - a myth - this only means you have it configured wrong OR it is really the time to upgrade equipment.
They don't chew paper indiscriminately. I tested.
A totally viable solution as 2-3 month temp unit.
For sure 2-3 weeks.

A single frame in a cardboard - a very cozy environment and makes it for "set-it-and-forget-it".
This is an auxiliary, cheap mating unit (in addition to the regular splits which also try to mate queens, but in a more expensive way).
A fail-over option.

I simply drop a frame with a QC attached to it (painter's tape works great - really a versatile hack - totally overlooked).
Give it 1-2 good shakes of bees, with the understanding that some will fly away.
It does not need to be a brood frame at all - honey/syrup/pollen frame is sufficient (!!!from the storage!!! - not even from a resource hive).
No resources to burn - to just trying to mate a queen.

Can just feed the non-foraging bees that will stay with the QC and the virgin until some result (positive or negative).
C&S harvest outputs are great for this - I save them just as feed - bees love to pick through the honey/pollen/wax mix.
Looking forward - I will be actually making some patties out of the C&S output and freezing them for later user (just like this).

Compress the volume around the frame using cardboard - to the very minimum space just around a single frame - done.
Paper multi-layer sandwich is a great material to hold a very small unit on a single standard frame.

No custom equipment - no time/resource spent on that.
The cardboard is free (I got a garage full of them - too many).
No rigging/scaffolding is even needed (I have done these - an overkill) - just stand the single frame in the box - it will just stand as-is - zero time on customization and stuff.
The only time find/save boxes that sort of match the frame - just close enough - cut a entrance - 10 second job.

The reduced volume to the max.
Few hundred bees in a compressed volume with enough stores/feeding to support the 2-3 weeks and a QC.

That is my idea of a mating nuc on a cheap.
Up to 10-20 queens for personal use - should work fine.
It really should be this stupid simple.
Seriously - there only marginal expense - your time; the actual $$$ spent - about zero.

I think the small scale homesteaders are watching the industrial queen production too much (and get too many wrong ideas implanted).

PS: the cardboard hold very well outside when protected from balk water;
kind of like this - cardboard box mating station (will try exactly this setup next year; this year I just did not plan ahead).

 

[msl]

It does not need to be a brood frame at all

agreed, (but that's not is being taught!!) its dosen't even need anything in it, not even drawn comb if you can feed the nuc (as is done with minis)

I think the small scale homesteaders are watching the industrial queen production too much (and get too many wrong ideas implanted).

I argue the opposite.... Commercial, Industrial, etc are used as buzz words with negative incantations.
Being "anti" big AG sells well, we see it all the time, ie people paying much more for a KTBH then a lang would have cost them, its a realy powerful marketing tool.

Often the ways these people use are not efficient enough leaving them short on resources and unable to make up for their losses, causing them to buy bees from the Big AG system (or catch swarms from that system) they think they are fighting against. Instead of fighting "the man" many are just feeding it.

Local sustainability on a landscape scale would likely lessen many of the issues we have with bees, to get there we (the hobbyists), need to use our resources more efficiently so on most years we have some to put in to the local system (sell) for those who had a bad year.

 

[GregB]

agreed, (but that's not is being taught!!) its dosen't even need anything in it, not even drawn comb if you can feed the nuc (as is done with minis)


I argue the opposite.... Commercial, Industrial, etc are used as buzz words with negative incantations.
Being "anti" big AG sells well, we see it all the time, ie people paying much more for a KTBH then a lang would have cost them, its a realy powerful marketing tool.

Often the ways these people use are not efficient enough leaving them short on resources and unable to make up for their losses, causing them to buy bees from the Big AG system (or catch swarms from that system) they think they are fighting against. Instead of fighting "the man" many are just feeding it.

Local sustainability on a landscape scale would likely lessen many of the issues we have with bees, to get there we (the hobbyists), need to use our resources more efficiently so on most years we have some to put in to the local system (sell) for those who had a bad year.

Somewhat agree.
When the KTBH (and the variants) are sold for $$ with some built-in non-sense as if "natural" - I hate that.
Natural comb recycled Lang box is just as natural.
Either should cost very little.

All I am saying - people asking on the BS (seriously) how they can get into raising queens and all those fancy castles, expensive and pretty little hives, etc.
I am like - get yourself a computer box from a recycling center and raise those queens by a dozen (no need for fancy/shmancy mating nucs and such).
Seriously, the mating part should be a few penny project.

 

[msl]

mostly agree as well...lol
Where I think we both are going is a smaller nuc started with some shook bees and a Cell/Virgin is a resource efficient way to mate out a queen.

My point was such "hacks" are often disregarded as "Big Ag" and over looked and/or looked down on by many small/micro scale beekeepers that could befit from such methods.

 

[GregB]

mostly agree as well...lol
Where I think we both are going is a smaller nuc started with some shook bees and a Cell/Virgin is a resource efficient way to mate out a queen.

My point was such "hacks" are often disregarded as "Big Ag" and over looked and/or looked down on by many small/micro scale beekeepers that could befit from such methods.

I see you mean.
A micro nuc == "Big Ag"?
What?
It is NOT a Big Ag.
If you sell 1000's of queens - that is a Big Ag.
20 micro-nucs in the small-scale sustainability project is not a Big Ag.
It is survival on a very small foot print - what it is.

I really should do few micro-nucs by design next season (of my 1-frame implementation; not going to get into that jumbo-queen cage business - however fun it seems).
Excited.