Revolutionary beekeeping method: Bottle-to-Bottle Honey Production | Contactless Beekeeping

I am looking for instructions on this kind of beekeeping:

Interested in this .

That was an interesting video. As far as I know he's the only person raising bees that way. I searched for more info & everything I found goes back to that one video. Some of the hives he shows would not be legal in most US states because the combs are not removable for close inspection. It's an interesting concept but in my opinion it uses too much plastic & probably epoxy. Putting big screws into trees to secure the hives doesn't seem great either. Seems like a good way to introduce pests & diseases to a tree.

I recently found this as well and was about to post it, but you beat me to it.  Good job.

Also added apple b/c I really want to hear peoples' opinion.  Seems like a whole lot of potential there.

Seems like it would eliminate one of the great tensions of beekeeping - how often to open a hive to ensure things aren't running away, vs how often you really want to upset the bees.

Ditto, a friend emailed me the video and I thought it belonged on permies as well.

I like how he's recycling/upcycling plastic jugs that probably come from the trash.  I like the low impact (to the bees) approach.  I'm looking forward to an update from him when he has more of it sorted out.

I think I see how he took a chunk of comb with some queen cells in it and cut them up into strips, skewered them and put them in 2 liter bottles.  I'm just not sure how those queens would be used.  Do they end up with mini hives in each of those small bottles and then he can populate failing hives elsewhere?  Once winter comes, what would he do with all of the little bottles of queens?

I'm just not sure how those queens would be used.  Do they end up with mini hives in each of those small bottles and then he can populate failing hives elsewhere?  Once winter comes, what would he do with all of the little bottles of queens?

Yes, the idea is to replace weak queens or start new nucs. That needs to be done before winter cold because a queen needs a large number of bees to keep her warm. Which realistically means they need to be mated before late summer because that's when the drones die off.

Ha, Ha! me too! I watched this just last weekend.

I am surprised by the comment

Seems like it would eliminate one of the great tensions of beekeeping - how often to open a hive to ensure things aren't running away, vs how often you really want to upset the bees.

I did not know about the "Society for the Preservation of Calm Bees [SOPCB] ", nor did I realise that opening the hive caused sufficient issues for the Society to exist!

I don't know very much about bee keeping yet, really very little, admittedly.  I've been watching Max's channel for about 5 years now and this man is incredibly thoughtful and meticulous in every endeavor which he undertakes.  He is an attorney by trade I believe.  He is not a jack of all trades and master of none.... he is more the opposite... he stives where possible to be master of many and jack of very few.  This video is not meant to be a tutorial on his very inginuitive method of bee keeping, but rather a simple introduction to his 3+ years of developing this method.  He actually acknowledges in the video that his method is simply a re-take on a method inspired by a very old Tanzanian method he observed which also happens to be in a form that generally dates back thousands of years (per his understanding).  He states that at a future date, he intends to publish a more vigorous review and instruction of his method and fundamentals associated w/ it.  

You can easily see in his character, thoughtfulness, and the apparent depth of knowledge (I cannot judge this though w/ my lack), that his intent is not anything aspiring toward a commercial venture, etc. (like that of the "anyone in the world can keep bees....."  flow-hive)... but rather, what is the simplest way to inspire mass bee husbandry across the world, in an open-source method, while mitigating as much of the operational and functional pitfalls (well known to bee keepers) and legal ramifications related to bee keeping.  

I would encourage everyone reading this thread to check out his youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/Advoko/videos.  It will be an absolute inspiration to any homesteader in terms of the incredible creativity, self-sufficiency, and expertise that he strives towards in his homesteading endeavors.  If I could pick my neighbors, he would be one of them.  

Well said Jim!

I found this video a few weeks ago... and went to check out his channel afterwards since it was so amazing.

What a treasure. I like him... and subscribed to him.

I am VERY interested in the future instructional videos he will be putting out.

In Fact, I just went and finally did the local "Beekeeping 101" class and joined my local beekeeping guild last weekend. Inspired by this very video.

I am personally not super excited to acquire gobs and gobs of honey. So I am leaning towards either a top-bar hive (that uses Langstroth frames though) with another large nuc of some sort next to it for backup.

Then (a few years later)... I would very much like to go out to the corners of the property and set up 1 or 2 of these large bottle hives. If they are still thriving after a few years... or even a few decades... that would be amazing. I would be letting them swarm and do their own thing.  I am surrounded for miles by old growth forests and pastures in all directions. Hopefully some of the wild swarms would survive... and bring better genetics to local bee keepers.

I will be starting off with one locally acquired bee colony and one bee package from "Gold-Star honeybees". The Gold-Star bees are already touted as "Treatment Free" bees. With create housekeeping, and self-grooming tendencies that enable them to function without the need for pesticides. I hear that the varroa mites have a hard time reproducing in their colonies as well.

I also just discovered this and I'm very excited to give it a try. Indeed, despite being pretty long the video mostly shows the ideas, not the details of the implementation. I plan to watch it again carefully, to work out what he's doing.

One thing I'm wondering, though, is whether plastic that's rated as food safe--whatever that means--for purified water is actually food safe if it contains beeswax, and if it's used for years outdoors.