Unlocking Summer Beekeeping Success with Randy Oliver ! !

Hey all,

This is a beekeeping chat, but not just any Bee Chat. This Bee chat is for the hobbyist, sideliner, and even commercial Beekeepers. Join in, ask questions, and engage other beekeepers from around the world. We'll discuss summer Beekeeping.

Thanks for watching. Like & Subscribe to follow the Journey,

Brian

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Tags:
#beekeeping #ohiobeekeeping #beekeeper #ohiobeekeeper #honeyBees #CastleHives #hiveinspection #apimaye #hivealive #lorobbees #beekeeping2024 #bees #backyardbeekeeping #apiary #honey #beethelighthouse #beethechange #savethebees #randyoliver

[beefitbeekeeping]

Brian, I feel your pain 44:39 this year Kasey and I brought in new queens from outside genetics and well…we are going to be going back to the basics and staying strict on what comes in and out. I have never opened a hive and been as disgusted as I am now, that’s a strong word to use but watching hives struggle when they should be succeeding right now really pulls on our heartstrings as beekeepers. Great talk, thanks for having Randy on!

[hillkidmountains]

Hello, I really liked this broadcast and talk with Randy Oliver last week. Though my life has changed a lot over the past couple of years, I've enjoyed keeping honeybees starting as a beginner in the late 1980's, to an advanced hobbyist with 10 hives, then to a sideline beekeeper with 100, 150, 200 colonies with 50 five frame nuc's as back up and for queen rearing in the spring summer, and fall at the peak of my numbers in the 2010's. I lived in the foothills at about 27, 50' feet elevation of the Sierra Nevadas southeast of Chico, California. I worked as a journeyman carpenter for 30+ years while raising a family and building my own house amongst the trees. We had a variety of animals with honeybees being my most favorite. Though I never got into grafting, only watching from the side or should I say over the shoulder, I was still able to work for and a long side for the experience with about half a dozen commercial beekeepers within a 50 to 100 mile radius from my home. Also having Dadant in Chico, Mann Lake bee supply in Sacramento to buy and build my own equipment was very helpful. Did Almond pollination for many years, prunes for a few and a couple plant crops briefly, along with my own garden and fruit orchard, before just bringing them home to build up and make increase for myself every year. I had a single 150 acre piece of property where I kept my bees and never out yarded them anywhere else. I enjoyed spring and summer very much as the populations within my hives built up. The overall genetics I laboured for was in that I had the good fortune to work alongside several different commercial beekeepers. Some bred their own individual matron stock and I was able to purchase or barter my work for those personal queens and a lot of grafted cells from the lineages they kept in their apiaries over time. These included breeders such as Koehnen, Foster, Pendell, Owen, Heitkam, Landon, Bordin, Olivarez, and Golden West. Mostly all Italian strains with some Carniolan queens sometimes, this was the goal in my apairy. All of these created a great assortment of diversity and within an hour as the crow flies for me to drive to their residence to pick them up. I remember when Randy was breeding for Orange Cordovans, early build up, and of course gentleness many years ago. Though I am nowhere in his league at the slightest he did buy some 5 frame nucs from me once and asked me to bring in some colonies into a contract of his in Williams, California once. I brought him my 24 strongest double deep 10 frame colonies on 4 way pallets that I had. And I believe he said they graded into the mid to low double digits 12/13 frame average I think. Knowingly grateful for his being one of the two mentors I have in my Beekeeping life. I was a member of the club, NCBA, that he belonged to and attended monthly at the veteran's hall in the area he lives. It has great people of all ages, a terrific library of books and materials you can check out, and many interesting presentations by many people every month with a question and answer period the start of every meeting. He teaches beginning beekeeper classes every year, in which I took the course when I first started. He is a charter member along with a gentle but stern to the craft man named Bert my he rest in peace, forever a board member with good advice to where the club was going and participating in the community, and a lifetime member given to him by all the club to which he greatly deserves for all his help and teachings. Myself, being on the club's swarm hotline gave me much experience in retrieving bees from all sorts of places in neighborhoods, home's backyard, a retail store parking lot trees or bushes, and even on top of a building in which I had to trap a established swarm that had gone into the walls via a hole in the stucco from an old outside light taken down but never sealed. I used a small queen right deep single 10 frame with half empty drawn foundation and the other with eggs, larvae, bees in all stages. I put a 10" inch screen cone glued to the wall with caulking that the bee went out but couldn't find a way back in forcing them to go into the box 2' feet above on the roof's edge. A lot of work, return visits, and a piece of plywood on forks with me lifted up to the roof to collect the full deep box, take off the screen, plug up the hole with little to no bees and an abandoned queen inside. Luckily it was a tractor supply that had extension ladders and a forklift for me to use. All that gave me a lot of interaction with the public explaining the importance of honeybees and to not be afraid of them. I usually gave the people a jar of honey, never charged them, and a thank you for their patience and understanding while I collected the swarms some watching outside within shouting distance from me while others glued themselves to the windows inside the house. With his encouragement, Randy's, I even did a presentation with a small observation hive at an elementary school. To my surprise the teachers and students had great enthusiasm. I let them try on parts of a suit, hats, gloves, veils. Also brought wooden components of a hive box set up on a fold up plastic table. Fascination with my smoker so much I wanted to light it up and let those interested puff on the bellows, but didn't do that for obvious fire, smoke and safety reasons. Pointed out the different types ages anatomy of bees and let them try to find the marked queen saying that there was only one. It was great fun to watch those faces looking from the outside through the clear plexiglass at the sides of the frame. There is also a festival in August at the Nevada County Fair up in the hills here in which I volunteered along with other club members at the bee booth they built years ago with an observation hive or two in it also. It is big like a tall shed building 8'' x 10' x 14' feet maybe. A very popular visit from the fair goers and a chance to invite them to a club meeting so they may see the possibilities of becoming a beekeeper. Others from the club get involved at showing items from a colony in one of the food and produce buildings presenting honey, beeswax, and baskets of hive products people bring into the fair to be judged. The one's lucky enough to receive blue ribbons get bragging rights at the club meetings for the next year. Also this place is known for the week-long Draft Horse Classic in September at the same fairgrounds. With a large Bronze Statue of one pulling timbered logs in the front as you drive up into the town of Grass Valley here in Nevada County. So many different kinds of horses you can go up to touch, talk to the owners, and see teams of steeds pulling carriages in numbers and hooked up to other equipment in the stadium stands to watch our past history with and reliance on them. So long comment and off topic a little but thank you Stream Team and Randy for the knowledge and hard work you all give in this area of developing resistance strains or stock to better our understanding of the current issues we face daily with honeybees. Hopefully like you said maybe in our lifetime we won't have to worry about these varroa mites and the viruses they give our bees and can just enjoy being partners with them in this world. Too bad Bruce couldn't be there. Though I heard he had a tremendous honey harvest. His best to date in years I think. Thanks, Gary 🐝

[brucesbees]

Finally had a chance to listen to this video. Great job guys. Food for thought…

[jerryobrien]

One of the best shows you have had, Thank you

[researcherAmateur]

I like to thank Randy for teaching me how to do the tests the right way. I could do my experiments with more realistic results. And thanks to him l keep better track of what l'm doing every year.
I hope that thanks to this live people will really learn and stop buying queens from all over ...
Great live!

[fuzzynuggetsbees]

Great discussion! Thanks for all that you share with us.

[aaronparis]

It sucks we get 5 months sometimes more of winter but it’s a benefit to us I think as it is a great brood break I took drone comb out yesterday and went threw them and not one mite was seen 😊

[framcesmoore]

Randy is great I wish he would make videos him self on beekeeping and mite control it would be great

[ronsmith]

By far the best live you all have had.

[aaronparis]

lol stoner bees I love it you come up to Canada we have stoner bees up here well all mine are 😅

[researcherAmateur]

Yes, on the Balkans we had a lot of veterans with PTSD and thanks to beekeeping a lot of them got much better even healthy. Bees teach you tranquility and serenity. And humility if you keep at it long enough.
We really have small wooden houses with the floor and beds made of hives and you can sleep on the hives and breath air from the hives. But it's organic beekeeping. There are even masks with a pipeline to the hives that you can put on and breath air directly from the hives when you sleep

[aaronparis]

Brian take a nuc and make it queenless pack it full with baby bees and let them make cells you will get 5 or 6 good cells and if you need more make 2 nucs

[MinnesotaBeekeeper]

What was the business book he mentioned? Huma bycheese?

[atlas]

Please make available a like to Randy's deformed wing virus C study as I do have chemical free (soft and hard) with a USDA chemical test of my 2024 honey to reinforce that claim. I have seen some DWV in previous years but observed none this year.
I would like to aid in his efforts.

[aaronparis]

Are weather has been crazy for 15 years winters are getting warmer here in Canada I tell you may sound stupid but we had 5 mass earth ending events and I think 6 is very close they talk about carbons and we have this tax now but Canada is one of the lease carbons country in the world we have no carbons issues it sucks but the world knows what it’s doing

[dcsblessedbees]

Thank you so much everyone, that was a Great Live with Randy.
Thank you very much for joining us Randy, 🥲poor Bruce missed it.😔😂
Everyone have a Wonder filled and Safe Independence Day.😁Blessed Days...