Nucs & Wax Production with Anne Frey (277)

Episode 277 – Nucs & Wax Production with Anne Frey

Jim Tew

Good morning, podcast listeners. Here at Honey Bee Obscura. I'm Jim, and today is kind of a special day because on a regular, irregular basis Ann Fry visits and she's here. Good morning, Ann.

Anne Frey

Hi, Jim. This is gonna be fun.

Jim Tew

She came in with a great topic. We want to talk about nucs, wax production in nucs caloric needs to produce wax and just generally enjoying nucleus beehives. So we're going to ramble through all that Anne's been practicing night and day reviewing the literature.

Anne Frey

Oh, Jim, I just did a quick review I'm supposed to know this stuff.

Jim Tew

Well that's yeah, w wish w you right, right, right. Don't don't challenge me too much now. Listeners, I'm I'm Jim Tew and I come to you here once a week at Honey Bee Obscura where I try to talk about something you do with plain talk beekeeping and today Ann Fry from Betterbee is here. Hello Ann again.

Anne Frey

Hey I'm glad to be here.

Jim Tew

So let's tune up this program and see how it goes.

Introduction

Welcome to Honey the Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today podcast. Join Jim 2, your guide through the complexities, the beauty, the fun, and the Challenges of managing honeybees. Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honeybees. Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper or just getting started, get ready for some plain talk.

That'll delve into all things honeybees.

Jim Tew

And when I contacted you and asked to do this, I thought you had a very clever idea because I've freely admitted that I like working nucleus hides. Not the baby nucs, they're a pain. The four-frame nucs, the five, six-frame nucs, you know, they're just small bee colonies that are starting out. They don't sting me so badly.

They're easier to pick up. You can see more B biology. It was a good topic. W what where are you coming from on this?

Anne Frey

Well, I'm starting to think more and more that a beginner should always we always say have two colonies, but I always I kind of am turning to think that the beginners should have two colonies and a nuc. Or maybe one of their colonies could be a nuc and they could just use it to uh stay a nuc and just continually pull a little bit away from it and put in the big hive so they could still have a nuc. You know they wanna grow, grow, grow, but they don't have to grow into a hive if you just keep using them as a resource like to make more comb from foundation and then you get to visit them and pull out the comb that's done and slip in another foundation and you learn more with the little nucs and you're not as overwhelmed when you're a beginner.

Jim Tew

That's actually beautifully said. You're not as overwhelmed as a beginner. And I'd like to add that you're not as overwhelmed as an old man, too, on the other extreme. Because it's so much easier.

Either you can probably be very gentle, no smoke, which is always kinda risky, but Do you read the bees if they're okay? If there's a good nuctar flow on, you probably don't even need smoke to get in.

Anne Frey

Yeah, quite.

Jim Tew

But I wouldn't open big colonies that way. Right.

Anne Frey

Right, yeah. We always have the smoker nearby.

Jim Tew

Yep.

Anne Frey

But then it seems like after the five, six minutes spent lighting the smoker that quite often it just sits there. And it's a rarity that we need to grab it when we're doing nuc work.

Jim Tew

Well, I like those nucs very much. So I and I you were talking about putting frames in for foundation. I think it works both ways because later in the season When those bees are clearly going to swarm, I could split colonies out. In this in a sense, that's a nuc, but I'm going the other way.

I'm taking equipment and resources from big colonies to make up the nucs.

Anne Frey

The person could certainly not start the year with a nuc, but maybe they could create a nuc in June, you know, something like that when their new nuc is starting to m get rambunctious I mean their new nuc that grew into a hive is beginning to be big. They could boom create another nuc and they'd be back to having a nuc and they'd have their big hive.

Jim Tew

Well a nuc is actually a very pleasant thing to do and and they're frequently called a toolbox because you can you know you got a queen that's gone. Well you got a queen in the nuc. But here's the truth, and I really hate to go to that nuc that's nicely balanced, got a good queen in it, really showing growth and potential, and take the queen out of it. to go put into a big colony.

I bet you if I possibly could that even though I said I had that nuc there to use for reasons like that I would probably still go see if I could buy a coin.

Anne Frey

Oh yeah.

Jim Tew

And just and just let the nuc stay in balance. It seems unfair

Anne Frey

Well I guess that might be a money issue for some people, 'cause by the time you get a queen shipped to you it's probably um like the price of the queen might be forty five and the price of shipping might be forty, you know, and uh overnight. So if a person just could absorb the rest of the frames and that queen into a colony that needed a queen, then they just saved eighty dollars by having the new Well, you just talked me out of that. Sorry.

Jim Tew

I would hop in my car. And drive the 40 miles to the closest queen provider that is around me. And that would mean that my cost would just be about $70 But you still No good point. That that queens are queens are more pricey than they used to be.

One thing that's enjoyable about a nuc, especially in a s in a flow, is you get to really watch The miracle of wax production. It's it's just so heavenly when that snow white wax mysteriously comes up Day to day when you go back in and have a look.

Anne Frey

I was gonna say magically.

Jim Tew

Magically and mysterious. Okay.

Anne Frey

Yeah, yeah.

Jim Tew

It's it's tender and it's fragile and it's snow white.

Anne Frey

Do you enjoy watching the wax production as much as you can and the swollen glands on the ventral surface of the bee and Yeah, I love it when I see the bees with wax flakes coming off of or like you gotta see the belly of the bee, the ventral surfaces, their belly. And that's not something people see very often, but I actively like uh pick up a f some workers and try to find it. Um, you know, I wanna I wanna get pictures and video of that because I do a lot of that sort of thing too. Um I wanna see the bees like chewing wax or passing little flakes from their abdominal area up to their mouths and it's surprisingly difficult to catch 'em at that.

But they build comb so fast when it has a big nectar flow or you're feeding sugar syrup. It's surprising to me. It's so hard to find this to catch on film.

Jim Tew

Well I can see why it would be you gotta be right there and then when you pull the frame out, you know, you dis you disrupt things.

Anne Frey

Right

Jim Tew

I don't have any f I have photos of the sw of the swollen wax glands.

Anne Frey

Mm-hmm. With the flakes being pushed out.

Jim Tew

With the flakes, but I don't have any photos of them actually m masticating it, molding it and positioning it

Anne Frey

Maybe they're just more happy to do it when it's dark and humid and warm and they kind of stop it when you pull a frame up.

Jim Tew

Well I read once that d that light inhibits the production of wax. But I don't know if that's true or not because they would build they build combs outside when they can't find That's true. When they can't find a cavity source But they normally build in d in dark leafy areas, so at least it's deeply shaded.

Anne Frey

True. Or under a like an overhang or under a bridge.

Jim Tew

So I f think that's something that I've d honestly read that I would have to know more about why that came up with.

Anne Frey

Yeah, show me the paper.

Jim Tew

I don't it was what paper and good grief. I want to go to the source. You read these things twenty-five years ago? I have no idea where it was.

But it at the time it made perfect sense.

Anne Frey

Usually when people are doing these kinds of studies, they're doing them in the lab, I would think, you know, they're feeding a bunch of bees some syrup or they're feeding 'em dilute s honey or something like that. Um, you know, or weighing the frames and weighing the sugar that went into the syrup and weighing everything afterwards and stuff like that. And uh it's it's the kind of stuff that I respect scientists for doing, but I'm not gonna do it.

Jim Tew

Yep. And this is kind of a pivotal place. Let's take a break and hear from our sponsor. And when we come back, let's talk about wax production, comb production.

That doesn't turn into comb, but it turns into whiting. Along the edges of all the frames, the old Burr comb gets that nice snow white edge. Let's talk about that when we come back. Okay.

But now here's our sponsor.

Introduction

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Jim Tew

acid strips, helping beekeepers keep stronger, healthier colonies. You know, I said we'd go right into whiting and discuss that, but I want to blindside you. We've got a uh we've got a new sponsor starting up, Vita Bee Health.

Anne Frey

They make a lot of things that are helpful to the bees.

Jim Tew

And those products are available at Better Bee, aren't they?

Anne Frey

Yeah. We've got a good relationship with them.

Jim Tew

So I would like to welcome them aboard. Now Tell me w about whiting or icing.

Anne Frey

The whiting.

Jim Tew

That is some t yeah, what's what's going on?

Anne Frey

Well, that's a thing that Mostly comb honey producers get excited about that, but it's a it's a sign that the bees are making a lot of wax from their wax glands. and they want to apply it somewhere. They want to make s make comb with it, but if they're kind of just putting it on the top burr comb edges of top bars and you notice it, that means, hey, there's a there's a big nectar flow on, there's a lot of wax being made. You you better get a super on there.

You're a little bit late, you know If they don't have the combs, the f frames to draw out or work on, they're gonna just put new wax wherever they can and we see it up there on the top bars. Would you agree with that

Jim Tew

I do. I do agree with that. And some of that happens as those flake laden bees drag that abdomen around. If when they drag it over those edges, they drag off parts and smidges.

Anne Frey

Yeah, those little flakes, they they're getting pushed out of the wax gland, out of that like crevice in the bees' bellies where every wax gland is, and then another flake is growing and pushing the other ones out and they just They drop sometimes. They get put pulled out.

Jim Tew

Onto onto the mirrors. It's called mirrors. You know what drives me crazy, Ann, that the bees don't seem to go pick that up.

Anne Frey

I know, they fall right to the state. Right. They won't pick it up. They I've heard that they will um just like nibble away chrome that's been made and use it again, but when they drop the wax flakes they just ignore them.

Jim Tew

Well I always think it's wasteful. I tr I always think about well, should I save this? That'd be a third of a teaspoon of perfectly beautiful wax there, so it's not really that much. No.

But there's this adage about how much honey it takes to produce that wax. What's your opinion on that?

Anne Frey

Well, I know people always say that it takes eight pounds of honey to make a pound of wax and it's like always bugged me that people say that 'cause you don't use honey to make wax. The bees use nectar or sugar syrup to make wax. But I think what they're trying to say is if this wax didn't have to be made, you could have gained eight pounds of honey from all the nectar that came in. Mm and that's kind of an equivalent way of saying it, but you know, they're they get sugar somehow, whether it's being carried in nectar or it's being carried in uh sugar syrup that you made, and they turn those sugar calories into wax.

Um know how people eat too much sugar, they end up getting fat. So the bees are The bees are converting sugar to a fat too and they're that's the wax that they're producing. I wish I could make construction materials after eating a whole bunch of sugar.

Jim Tew

Yeah. Well, the thing I think happens is why don't bees produce wax all the time? Why is it just during a nectar flow? And you know, if they had enough comb They probably wouldn't produce wax.

Isn't it a stimulus of them have being forced to hold nectar in their crop because there's no place to put it? That they begin to unvoluntarily secrete wax?

Anne Frey

Sounds like uh sounds like I gotta go back to class. Are you teaching a class soon?

Jim Tew

No, no.

Anne Frey

No, I haven't.

Jim Tew

No, I thought that was a the driving impetus for wax production.

Anne Frey

I didn't know that. about twelve to eighteen days old they just made wax. But of course there's always some bees that old until the queen stops laying eggs. And they really are resistant to making comb after m midsummer, you know, after late June goes by.

Jim Tew

Yep. I if check me out. I'm using old, old information from an old mind From a long time ago. But something turns it on, something turns it off.

Or otherwise there'd be wax there'd be wax production going on all the time.

Anne Frey

Yeah, yeah. There's there's definitely a few things like there's the day length, but then there's the age of the bees, and then you're saying there's also this Hey, there's not enough room to store this nectar, so it's sitting in these young bees crops for a while. And then they're they're not just like depositing it, they're digesting it and making more right. They're metabolizing it.

Jim Tew

Metabolizing it. Right. Right.

Anne Frey

Hmm. I like it I'm gonna look uh I'm gonna do some reading.

Jim Tew

If you leave if you leave four frames out and you put the inner cover on and you go back and you pull that inner cover up, you know what you're going to find.

Anne Frey

Four nice combs.

Jim Tew

Yep, but Anne, I want to tell you this. Tear tear those combs off and see what happens. That base is extremely tough. So f while the while the bottom of the comb tears all to pieces, the base is really tough and rigid, that where they put the foundation of the comb.

Is that Propolis?

Anne Frey

Well, it might be some propolis, but also I think that it's thicker comb. I think probably as they're working if they detect that it's detaching, they quickly add some more comb, you know, so maybe it tends to become uh stronger and thicker and reinforced where it's the base, as you say, which is the ceiling part of for them up against the inner cover. Um the anchor. Yeah.

Yeah, no doubt.

Jim Tew

It'd be like tearing an old sheet of foundation. If you had medium brood foundation and you tore it, it gives you some resistance. And that was what I was noticing. And then when you scrape it off it kind of fights you.

And there is some propolis there, but the propolis is being added slowly and over time.

Anne Frey

Yeah, externally. Yeah, that's I would definitely not just tear those combs off. I would cut 'em off really carefully with my sharp hive tool and lay them aside and um like rubber band them into some wooden frames if especially if they had brood in 'em. If they just have nectar in 'em and they're brand new, they're they get mushy really easily.

Jim Tew

Yeah, they really get mushy.

Anne Frey

Yeah. So I would um Uh, you know, this is probably in May that this kind of thing happened or June. And I don't really worry too much about setting a comb full of nectar, you know, this crazy comb that they made. And letting them rob that.

And at the end of summer I'd be worried about setting up something like robbing. Um, but I would save the combs if they had any brood in 'em and just lay the ones with nectar in 'em out to be robbed. I agree with that completely.

Jim Tew

If they had any usable brood resources, I would try to give that back.

Anne Frey

Yeah, and the green could be on any of them too.

Jim Tew

You know, don't just go slice or tear, you know, the queen could be walking between any of those while is an excellent comment because that new comb is immediately attractive to that queen. And so while you're shaking and bumping and cutting

Anne Frey

Yeah.

Jim Tew

There's a great chance that the queen's up there.

Anne Frey

This is a is especially with like feeders, different kinds of feeders up above the inner cover. Sometimes the bees just get wild and build comb around the feeder in that um vacant space under the under the cover in that super that's hiding the feeder. And people don't know what to do with it. You know, it's just like it's just madness to a beginner beekeeper and it's like, you know, first Give 'em some smoke.

Second, lay those combs portions out on the top bars of what you've got and probably smoke them more so that if the queen is on them she'll go down below And then you can do your reconstruction with rubber bands and a empty wooden frame. So it's like um surgery, especially tough for a beginner, but if they get into it, then they're just like holding little combs with bees walking on their fingers and they start to go, Wow, this is so cool, you know. It's like gotta get in there with the nucs and the hives and uh just kind of observe and have fun with the bees, especially in those first few months. If you left the frames out, you might even see them, you know, white if they weren't stuck to the uh inner cover and you just had them built maybe from below, straight upwards, because sometimes they do that.

You might see a gap and see them dangling across the gap like rock climbers with their ropes. Yep. And and that's uh I don't know why people call it festooning, but I love that festooning.

Jim Tew

Yeah, it does. Sagging. They're festooning.

Anne Frey

I'm like, how do they do that? You know, you see ants kinda doing that sometimes when they're trying to cross a gap, but it's like I'm just picturing them piling into that area and clinging on to each other really thickly and then maybe for some reason they thinned out and just clung to both the combs. And then there was like three or four ropes of bees just stretched across the gap and it's like, hey, what's happening? I thought we were clumping up.

It's just like, I don't know. Festooning.

Jim Tew

So that they build their combs perpendicular to the gravitational force in the dark eye.

Anne Frey

So dangling, okay. And the gravity keeps 'em plum straight.

Jim Tew

Because they need that for the dance language to work, because they need to know where their perception of north is. But I'm talking like I know what I'm talking about. These are all things that you just uh come up with while we're reminiscing here.

Anne Frey

Yeah, I don't know how like I don't know if they do it because I would say that the combs become plum and straight because of gravity and they festoon because of gravity, but they're You know, there they're two s two things that happen because of gravity, not like they festoon and I wonder if on that new comb, that brand new comb

Jim Tew

Tender, we talked about how fragile it is.

Anne Frey

Yeah.

Jim Tew

If just the weight of the bees on it pulls it perpendicular to gravity. Ah, good one. I don't know. I'm just making this up as I go along.

Anne Frey

Yeah, they make it they make it any way they want, like in waves that say their hive is facing north-south or whatever. They might make some waves of it if you messed up and didn't have your frames in there.

Jim Tew

Yeah.

Anne Frey

Heading east west, you know, but it's always vertical. They're they're uh They can't they can't fight gravity. It's a law, you know.

Jim Tew

It is a law. It is. And we're out of time. But I'd like to ask if we can come back to nucs again because there's a lot about nucs we didn't cover, you know, I'm making them up, using them.

We mentioned all that. But the wax thing was so pervasive I enjoyed talking about it. So maybe sometime in the next few months we can Can visit this again, especially for hiving swarms and whatever.

Anne Frey

Yes, springtime is uh nuc time.

Jim Tew

All right. Until we do this again, I'm gonna let you go. Tell everybody bye.

Anne Frey

Okay, bye everybody. See you, Jim.

Jim Tew

Bye everybody. See you. Anne, Thank you.