Backyard Beekeeping Questions and Answers Episode 225

This is the audio track from today's YouTube video:  https://youtu.be/v7FrFivqDpc

Video topics and associated time stamps below are generously provided by Adam Holmes

 

1) Is 3 x 3/8" opening enough to protect from robbing? When should we take robbing screens off? 7:06

 

2) Australia now has varroa and moving to a management plan. I wanted to ask what treatments you recommend for our weather in Sydney? 24:20

 

3) If I put pollen patties on my hive, are the nurse bees or foragers retrieving the resources? Am I limiting the number of foragers that leave the hive because they are foraging inside the box? 36:04

 

4) I think I finally have the red ants under control. I don't think my hives will make it through winter and want to combine them but don't want to lose a queen. Can I put an inner cover with the round hole between them and combine the hives? 46:00

 

5) Do the yellow jackets get varroa mites as the honey bees? 49:06

 

6) In this video, you can see a drone land on he board in the left of the frame, then crawl into the hive. Do drones swarm with hives? 52:36

 

7) The rapid rounds don't sit flush on the inner cover due to the protrusion of the center. I've seen you use a spacer. 55:01

 

8) Can I leave extracted frames/comb in the hive? I want to put the now empty comb into the other end of the Layens hive. 1:01:40

 

9) I have read that I can re-feed the honey to the colony by putting a standard inner cover between the super and the brood chamber because the colony will not consider the comb on the other side to be part of the colony. I was wondering if you had any opinions about the approach? 1:06:04

 

10) There are a lot of people on YouTube talking about feeding bananas to bees. What are your opinions on this? 1:13:52

 

11) Do you ever harvest your flow frames at night? I had a jar overflow and the bees are patrolling the area behind the "honey disaster hive". 1:20:25

 

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