Beginner Video Suggestions

For the beginners, if there was one information video you could request by an experienced beekeeper that would resolve your biggest question(s), what would it be?

As a beginner doing my first inspection, I found how to hold things and where to put stuff awkward. I have watched lots of videos but nothing compares to experience. So I think it doesn’t really matter what you watch, it’s all about doing. Hopefully I will be less awkward with my next inspection.

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I agree that getting in and hands on is where the learning really happens.

Hard to suggest one video but I find the university of Guelph videos to be very well done, generally short, high quality, and cover a wide range of topics including very elementary and advanced. Of course, not entirely without controversial advice - but hard to avoid completely.

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…I think Bianca is asking for ideas for the next Flow video :wink:

If so, I think one good one would be how to spot eggs!

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I think for most of the world a good discussion of varroa mites would be helpful - but not much experience in Australia…

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Hi all, I would love to see a video on the inspection of the brood box under the flow (honey super) during a nectar flow. I am coming into my first ‘flow’ season and would like to see this, what to look out for, also how often do beeks do inspections of the brood box during a flow?

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Second this, and in the process show the various stages of brood, drone cells, and identify nectar, capped honey, pollen.

Good luck Mr Camera man :rofl:

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The other is bee behaviour… Most newbees will ask…Are my bees swarming? When in reality they are possibly witnessing:

  • orientation flights
  • bearding
  • washboarding
  • fanning
  • aggressive guard bee
  • afternoon traffic jam at entrance (open up your entrance! :rofl:)
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I think a good early beginner theme would be understanding the mood of the colony and how to work with/around it. I recall having no appreciation for this at the start and it’s something that doesn’t translate well on videos unless the bees are going nuts over the fuzzy microphone cover. This could include how to handle them (not easy with gloves) and what upsets them in our behaviour, actions (eg. wearing dark clothes, perfume).

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These are great suggestions!

Agree! But the host could talk about how to carefully angle the frame so the sun hits the egg and to consider how the cell faces up. Genius.

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True true true! I imagine it would be difficult to demonstrate this by camera but I reckon a really intuitive beekeeper with a way with words could do it well. Obviously well worth a shot. It would certainly support a more mindful beginner with better observations quicker. Probably resulting in less stings too :slight_smile:

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I agree, but as an example, reinforcing being calm and methodical is worth it, as it can be one of the first things to go out the window (not to mention the plan) if/when the bees get agitated.

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I think Mira and cedar have shown eggs in one of their videos together. Maybe I’m wrong.

There’s a lot of good content in cedars videos but if you’re looking for something specific it might be easier to have them edited down to a much shorter snippet.

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Agree. Yes, you are right. I believe it’s a Facebook Live video, which can be up to 1 hour long. Mira shows her trick of using an iPhone to take photos of the base of the cells to check for eggs. It would be great to have a specific video for this and other techniques the beekeeper can try.

I think it’s a really great idea to have a video on the importance of maintaining calm and methodical movement in the hive, like @Outbeck explains. Thanks team.

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