Opening Hives Descriptive Transcript Summary: Paul Kelly, research and apiary manager, shows how to open honey bee hives. 00:05 - 00:25 [The video opens with footage of someone peeling back the internal cover of a hive. The text ÒOpening HivesÓ fades in. The video transitions to a montage of seven shots showcasing honey bees and different elements of the research centre, ending with footage of a bee taking off from a yellow flower as the logo for the Honey Bee Research Centre fades in.] 00:28 - 00:52 [Cut to wide shot of Paul Kelly in the apiary kneeling by a bee smoker, stool and a white bucket.] Paul Kelly: So we're here this time to talk about working with bees, how to open up a colony, how to inspect the colony, to go through it, to remove the frames, and do everything in a way that keeps the bees nice and calm and protects the queen. We always need to be thinking about the queen when we are opening up a hive and going through to ensure that we don't damage her with our manipulations. 00:52 - 01:30 Paul: So we are working in the spring of the year, we've got a small colony here, things are a lot easier than later on when there's bigger population, more equipment and so on to work through, so this is a good place to start at the beginning of the year. This is an over wintered nucleus colony that we've just transferred over into a full-sized hive about a week ago. We're going to open it up and have a look. I like when we are working in the brood chamber, I like to be sitting down, so either sitting on a bucket like this that we carry our smoker fuel in or on a stool like so, but a bucket works just fine too. 01:30 - 02:08 [Paul stands up and moves the stool and smoker over to a nearby hive. He kneels beside the colony and speaks to the camera.] Paul: So first thing we'll do is add some smoke to the colony. We'll puff a bit of smoke at the entrance where all the bees are going in and out of the hive. So we call that the front of the hive or the entrance and we don't stand or walk at the entrance that's because we'll be obstructing the bee flow. We could be standing on bees or stepping on bees so and the movement of our feet in front of the entrance we are likely to get stung on the ankles if we are working in that area, so we just stay away from the front of the hive, we'll just puff some smoke there again and then we'll sit down and take the hive apart. [Paul sits on the stool beside the hive. Camera zooms in on the hive.] 02:10 - 02:38 Paul: As much as possible we avoid injuring bees as we are working through the hive. [Paul removes the lid from the hive.] They can get crushed in between bits of equipment and so we try and avoid that. We puff some smoke as we open the inner cover. So just peel that inner cover back and puff a little bit of smoke in and then we'll lay that inner cover on the ground. 02:39 - 03:25 Paul: We use a canvas inner cover, some people use feed sacks as a fabric cover, but the most common thing is to have a wooden inner cover, but just this is our preference is the fabric cover. So you can see that that smoke makes the bees go down inside the hive and gorge on honey, so as the bees come up to the surface of the frames we add a bit more smoke to move them back down again. So we do need to add smoke to the hive periodically and of course the smoke has to touch the bees for it to be effective, so on a windy day you have to be a little bit more focused on how you are directing the smoke. We don't, however, puff the smoke down in between the frames because that just gets the bees running around. 03:25 - 04:00 Paul: Now we always take the second frame out first. The first one is often firmly attached to the box, it's a bit harder to get out without crushing bees. As we move more towards the middle the queen is more likely on these frames and that first frame you pull out there's the biggest risk of crushing a queen and other bees, so we'll move back to this second one and there is less risk involved. We also want to be working across the box methodically so we can do a thorough inspection. So, if you start in the middle you have to go two directions, so we'll start with the second frame. 04:00 - 04:35 Paul: We pry against the third frame, holding the second frame in position, and then we pry against over here [the other side of the frame] and what we've done is we've broken the bond in between the second and the third frame. I like to jam my finger in here [between the second and third frame] and then pry up that with my finger gives a bit of a space so I can't pry that frame against the next one. And then we loosen that up there, pinch the frame with index and thumb on both sides and then just pull up as straight as possible. 04:36 - 04:54 Paul: There is a natural tendency to tip towards you as you are pulling up, which would mean crushing bees with the bottom of the frame as it's being pulled up, so pull it up nice and straight and slowly and then you can lean a corner of the frame down and tip it over and have a look at the comb. 04:55 - 05:04 Paul: We are not going to be focusing very much this time around with what we are seeing in the hive, we are more focusing on the technique of dismantling the hive. 05:05 - 05:32 Paul: But that frame will then lean against the far front corner of the hive by doing that we are getting it completely out of the way, so it doesn't interfere with us taking out other frames. If the queen happened to be on this frame and she dropped onto the ground at least she is near the entrance and can just run into the hive and again we are not doing anything in front of the hive so that is a nice safe area there. 05:33 - 06:14 Paul: Now we have lots of space to be working with, we have all this extra space, so from then on there is less risk of crushing of bees or even the queen. A few bees with their heads looking up at me, so we'll just puff a little bit of smoke there doesn't take very much, and then we'll hold the frame with the thumb and pry it towards me. We hold onto it as we pry so that it doesn't snap free, sending vibrations through the hive, which agitates the bees. So then we can pull that over into the middle of the space and then come straight up and you can see there is very little risk of crushing bees now that we have all this space. 06:16 - 07:05 [Paul holds the frame vertically, showing it to the camera.] Paul: To handle the frames and to tip them from one side to another we need to move one hand at a time, so I like to put the frame up vertically and then rotate the upper hand and then rotate the bottom hand to go from one side of the frame to the other. Easier to do than to describe. You can tip it and just move one hand at a time as you are going. We have a look at that frame and then we can put it back into the hive, transfer our fingers back onto the top of the frame, lower it down where we have all this space and then just gradually move it over and snug it up against the next frame so you maintain all this working space here. [Paul puffs smoke on the open hive.] 07:10 - 07:37 Paul: We'll then hold this frame and pry the next one free. Pry again and then pull the frame up straight up and then we rotate our hands around the end so we can hold it like a book and then we can transfer it over to the other side and again look at it like you are holding a book. 07:38 - 08:05 Paul: I happen to see the queen on this side of the frame [Camera zooms in on PaulÕs finger identifying the queen bee.] here she is right here surrounded by her retinue or her court, all the bees that are feeding her and cleaning her. She's busy looking from cell to cell looking for a place to lay an egg. Of course her behaviour is altered by being exposed to sunlight, occasionally you'll see them laying an egg even out in the sunlight though. 08:05 - 08:49 Paul: So we want to take extra special care of her, so what I am going to do is lean her against the other frame that we've set out of the hive to make sure that we can keep track of where she is while we do the rest of the colony inspection. [Camera zooms out to show Paul placing the frame to the side.] So I will take this frame and I'll lean it in a way that we are not going to crush any bees or the queen. Now she'll stay in that nice dark spot in between the two frames there and we can carry on and inspect the rest of the colony. 08:49 - 09:15 [Camera returns to close up of open hive.] Paul: If bees get in your way you just kind of bop them out of the way with your hive tool so that you have room for your hive tool without pinching any bees. Pry that one loose, pinch the frame, move it over to where we have space pull it straight up, rotate our hands around and tip the frame towards us so we can inspect the cells. 09:20 - 09:57 Paul: Now we are going to close the hive back up again. We transfer our fingers to the top of the frame move it down, slide it over I should mention at this point it's not a good idea to pry against that end of the frame. [Paul points to the edge of the frame that lines up with the edge of the box.] It seems like a natural place to dislodge the frames, but you are prying against this weak part of the box, and if the frame is really stuck down with wax and propolis, you'll actually break the box there, so always pry against the adjacent frame. 09:58 - 11:00 Paul: Alright, so now we know that the queen is on one of these frames here. [Camera pans over to the two frames leaned up against the corner of the hive.] We are going to pick up this frame I don't see her on this side - oh yep there she is right there, [Camera zooms in on Paul pointing to the queen on the frame.] right here, so I am going to protect her by turning the frame [Camera zooms out to show Paul turning the frame.] so that she is on the opposite side and then give her lots of space as I am putting this frame down, and then just slowly move that over into place. That means she is safe over here in between the frames and we can then move the frames back to their original positions. And then the first one we took out goes back to its original spot, we gradually lower the frame down. 11:01 - 11:19 Paul: Now we have a little extra space here, so we need to just shift the frames around slightly so that they are nice and evenly spaced throughout the box. We are going to apply a bit of smoke now to get the bees moving down, so that when we put the inner cover on there is very little chance of crushing any. 11:21 - 11:54 Paul: So we'll just set that into position there, [Paul places the inner cover over the hive.] wiggle it around a little bit, let any bees out that are going to be trapped. As we put the lid on we'll make sure there aren't any bees on the inner cover; any bees that are up here will be trapped in there when we put the lid on and will then die, so we clear them out of the way there. We make sure there aren't any bees in here, if there are then tap them off, there is one that snuck in, and then we just set the lid down in place there and we've done our colony inspection. 11:54 - 12:14 [Camera pans up to a medium shot of Paul speaking to the camera.] Paul: So there you've seen a few ways of handling the frames safely to avoid damaging the queen and to enable us to be able to do a colony inspection. Coming up right next we'll actually inspect each of these frames to see what we can see inside a normal beehive. Thanks very much. See you next time.