00:02Humans have been working with honeybees for at least 7,000 years that we know of due to cave
00:08paintings that show honey hunters gathering wild honey from hives and and in those paintings even
00:15you'll see someone with a torch below the person hanging over the cliff on the rocks trying to get
00:20the honey and using the smoke. The first thing you want to do is start with some good dry smoker
00:28fuel and I like to use pine needles just because they're readily available and they light very easily
00:34you don't need newspaper or anything to get them going and they kind of smell nice when they burn.
00:40Short quick puffs with the bellows helps the fire to get going and when it's burning really well
00:49I'll add another small handful and I'll get that going really well as well.
00:56One way to start in terms of dealing with mites is when you get your bees get bees that have
01:05some
01:05proven resistance to begin with and there are three primary strains of bees that have proven
01:11actually four types of bees you can get commercially that have proven to have some resistance. One is the
01:18Russian bees because Russia is probably closest of all the European countries to India where the
01:26Varroa mite's natural host is the eastern honeybee which is Apis serrana. So when you approach a hive
01:33it's always best to approach from the side or from the back not from the front simply because the bees
01:40are coming and going from the front or wherever the entrance is and if you're blocking their path they may
01:46feel threatened like you're trying to prevent them from coming or going and they're more likely to sting.
01:52So if you don't blow the smoke all the way so it goes inside those guard bees are going to
01:57be on
01:57high alert when you start opening the hive and you're probably going to get stung. So you make sure
02:02the smoke goes all the way inside before you open the hive. Okay now I can just take a peek
02:10here and I can
02:10see they haven't really drawn the combs out yet they got plenty of room that's all good that's why I
02:17just wanted to check and make sure and this is most of what you do through most of the season.
02:22I'm just
02:23you take a peek inside and see if they have enough room or not. What we're seeing here is the
02:29burr comb
02:30that the bees will build between the bottom bars of the top box and the top bars of the bottom
02:36box
02:37and in fact here is a cell where they were raising a young drone and when I separated the boxes
02:46that drone
02:46got exposed. They give back more than they take they through pollination they provide the plants the
02:58opportunity to breed and be abundant so there's an abundance of plants an abundance of fruits and nuts
03:05and seeds and berries and fruits vegetables of all different sizes and there's abundance for
03:11everybody and all the other insects and animals and plants and so what a great lesson to try to work
03:16into my life is how to live in such a way that by taking what I need from the world
03:21around me I do it
03:23in a way that gives back and makes the world a better place like the bees
03:29I do it in a way that is
03:44you
Comments