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  • As you might now, I am a huge fan of pollinators and bees. And this past weekend, I got to

  • watch a beekeeper as he set up a new hive, and it was super awesome. So in this video,

  • I'm going to show you a little bit of what that entailed. Here's a hint: there were three

  • pounds of honey bees.

  • Honey bee hives are amazing, complex things, though on the surface they're just a wooden

  • box with a series of frames inside. The complexity and amazingness really comes from the tiny,

  • social insects that occupy them.

  • Honey bees have been around for millions of years, but the European honey bees that we

  • keep in hives are not native to the United States. As colonists traveled, they brought

  • honey bees with them, establishing hives as they went. As a result, there are now European

  • honey bees all over the world.

  • Like I said, the construction of a bee hive isn't that complicated. It's a wooden box

  • containing a series of frames, like this one.

  • It's essentially a wooden frame with piano wire suspended across it to support the foundation.

  • The foundation is the surface that the honeybees will build their comb on. This one is made

  • of beeswax, though some beekeepers will use plastic.

  • The frames sit vertically in the hive, so that they can be removed to be checked on

  • and also so that the caps on the honeycomb can be removed later in the season to harvest

  • the honey.

  • This supply of honey is what honey bees use as their food during the winter. They can't

  • go out and forage, so they're completely reliant the honey that they have to survive. Bees

  • make honey from nectar. They also collect and eat pollen, but only nectar is used to

  • make honey. The foraging bees go and they store nectar in their honey stomachs, and

  • then return to the hive. In the hive, they regurgitate that nectar, and use enzymes from

  • their stomachs to turn it into honey.

  • So, yes, basically, honey is honey bee vomit. Delicious, sweet vomit. Please do not quote

  • me on that.

  • As I've discussed in previous videos, honey bees are also really important pollinators,

  • so there's a lot of reasons that they're important. Honey is just the sweetest benefit.

  • And that brings us back to hives. What I got to witness this weekend was the establishment

  • of a new hive. So what the beekeeper Peter needed to do was set up a new hive, with fresh

  • frames like the one I mentioned. All that was missing, was the bees.

  • So the first thing Pete needed to do was remove the Queen. She's shipped in the same container

  • as the worker bees, but in her own individual cage. It also contains a small layer of fondant,

  • a sugary material that she and the workers will eat through. She'll emerge from that

  • little cage in two to three days. You can see that there are worker bees clustered around

  • her, they're attracted to the pheromones that she gives off, and they're being gently brushed

  • off.

  • Just rest that gently down in there.

  • With the queen added to the hive, next the worker bees have to be added. And really,

  • there's no graceful way to do this, so here's three pounds of honey bees being dumped into

  • a hive, as gently as possible.

  • So there's my three pounds of bees. You can see they're all stuck in the top. Basically

  • I'm just gonna put it in there.

  • Tap them in, as delicately as one can tap three pounds of bees.

  • And try not to piss them off too much.

  • Which is, you know, a tall order when you're pouring them out of a plastic container.

  • Oh, is that?

  • Yep, that's wax they had started building.

  • I guess they were stuck in there and they were like "well we might as well."

  • Right.

  • Um, so it's not particularly graceful.

  • Which, you know, understandably.

  • So I'm going to get as many out as I can without standing here for twenty minutes.

  • Honey bees that are being transported like this generally aren't as aggressive because

  • they don't have a home to protect yet. So even though they've flying around like mad,

  • they're not really going to hurt us unless we piss them off.

  • So the hope now is that those honey bees will choose that hive as their home and begin building

  • comb. You may have noticed a jar inside of the hive, that's sugar water, which will function

  • as an initial food source for the bees, so they can get the energy they need to build

  • a lot of wax comb very quickly.

  • It was really amazing getting to be that close to honey bees, and watching them as they landed

  • on the bee suit I was wearing. Experience beekeepers will be able to read the mood of

  • their hives, and of course they'll sometimes use smokers to calm them as they inspect the

  • hives.

  • But if you encounter honey bees in your day-to-day activities, they really won't do anything

  • to hurt you unless you threaten their hive or accidentally piss them off.

  • I hope you enjoyed this brief glimpse into the art of beekeeping. I'll definitely be

  • making more videos about different aspects of beekeeping, because I really enjoyed this

  • and really want to learn more.

  • I also have an announcement to make, I've started a Patreon page. If you're not familiar

  • with Patreon, Patreon is a way for viewers to support creators who are creating free

  • content. All of my content, blog posts, videos, will remain free, but this is a way to help

  • me get better equipment, travel to cooler places and just make better videos. If you're

  • interested, you can click through to my Patreon page, and there's a video there that gives

  • more information about how that works. And if you can't support me, that is totally fine,

  • all of my content will still be here and you can check out that page for updates.

  • I created a Patreon because I really love making these videos, and I'd like to make

  • them sustainable and better. Thank you so much for watching, don't forget to like and

  • subscribe, and I will see you next time.

  • I got to watch a--

  • *screeching noise*

As you might now, I am a huge fan of pollinators and bees. And this past weekend, I got to

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三斤蜜蜂 (Three Pounds of Honey Bees)

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    Jack 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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