Worldwide Beekeeping
Beekeeping => General Beekeeping => Topic started by: Wandering Man on April 27, 2021, 07:27:21 pm
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This has been an interesting April. We’ve caught 3 swarms at our bee yard. I’ve learned we have people using bees for the Ag Valuation near me, and I suspect these bees are from them. 1 flew into an empty hive and two flew into swarm traps.
We had a call for bees on a driveway 2 weeks ago. That ended up being a sad capture. Half the bees were dead before we arrived. The other half were dying. They’d been sprayed with insecticide somewhere nearby. We scooped up the dying bees into a nuc and took them to our beeyard. At least they died in a hive, and not on the driveway.
This evening I am just back from hiving a swarm at someone’s house. The homeowner said the bees had been hanging around for a week. That seems odd. Anyway, they are now in our beeyard. They were easy to shake into the box, and the remaining bees immediately began flying in. I’ll look into the nuc in a few days to see how they are doing.
(https://i.ibb.co/9b8bs4z/DB39-BD00-CA07-4-B6-D-8934-DB3-E10-B750-BE.jpg) (https://ibb.co/9b8bs4z)
(https://i.ibb.co/Svp2DQv/8-FDC03-A5-DE1-B-4498-AE00-565309-F7-DD16.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Svp2DQv)
(https://i.ibb.co/wdbwWdf/C5-B3-BD20-6-C2-B-40-FE-A6-CB-B1-CD1-E8331-C5.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wdbwWdf)
(https://i.ibb.co/BcmjnXc/9814-C04-B-B9-CA-4-D4-B-AD3-C-F7-FEF4177002.jpg) (https://ibb.co/BcmjnXc)
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Good post WMan! And I really love photo's.
Sorry about the poisoned bees, breaks my heart :'(
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Oh that's sad about the dead ones. :'(
I had one of my hives swarm yesterday. There is this little scrubby pine on the property next to us that my swarms always land in. My adult sister normally helps me with swarm captures, but she wasn't home, so it was up to the kids to help. My younger sister has suited up before to inspect with me, but she'd never done a swarm, and she was really good. She wasn't scared at all, and she helped me shake them out of the tree and look for the queen. We didn't find her, I'm pretty sure she's a virgin from one of my hives, but the bees are still in the new box, so I'm guessing she's in there somewhere. There is still about a fist sized cluster on the tree, which is unusual. My bee yard is right next to the property line, and normally the rest leave the tree by the next day. If they are still there tomorrow, I'll go and grab them.
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If still there, look closely. Perfect scenario for 2 queens.
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If still there, look closely. Perfect scenario for 2 queens.
This was the hive I thought had killed their queen a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't find her on two tries, then one day we found the queen in this hive and a colony in a different hive that had been empty. I finally managed to get a picture of this queen and discovered she had a clipped wing. So, she is either the queen we released and the bees cleaned off her mark, or your previous comment is correct and there was another queen loose in the package we bought.
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So, for an update ...
It looks like another swarm has moved into the brown swarm trap. I took a peek this afternoon to see if it really was a new swarm or if I was just seeing lost foragers from the last swarm that had been living in the box.
There were a lot of bees. More than I would expect from wayward foragers.
And they were really aggressive. I've been able to stand outside the box and watch bees go in and out, but as soon as I picked up a frame, I could smell bananas and had bees all over me. I picked up a second frame looking for a queen, and by that time they had started stinging my gloves. I only had on the jacket and veil with regular pants and tennis shoes. I felt my ankles were vulnerable, so I put the frame down and left. My "mini swarm" stayed with me as I walked to the back of our 10 acres, across to the other side, and over to our 3-sided barn. Once in the barn, I was left with just a single bee. But as soon as I stepped out to get into the truck, the mini swarm was back.
3Reds was with me and had her own personal swarm of angry bees. Fortunately neither of got stung, but we had to drive a ways in the truck for the bees to calm down and leave.
I'm busy for the next two weeks, and then we'll go back out, kill the queen, wait a couple of days and see if they will accept a new queen.
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Yikes! Be safe.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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Yikes! Be safe.
Ditto!
WM, does this bring you up to the necessary 8 colonies to maintain your Ag status?
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We've now got 10 hives plus the swarm we caught a couple of days ago.
We are finally getting a few drops of rain, and our sunflower field is starting to bloom.
And now for a new question about requeening. I'll post that elsewhere.
(https://i.ibb.co/5vYb2ry/20210428-142036.jpg) (https://ibb.co/5vYb2ry)
(https://i.ibb.co/60zwGZ4/20210429-144734.jpg) (https://ibb.co/60zwGZ4)
(https://i.ibb.co/wM0y0rH/20210429-144914.jpg) (https://ibb.co/wM0y0rH)
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wow, I am just starting to get the first few dandelions here... :'(
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wow, I am just starting to get the first few dandelions here... :'(
Wildflower season is here. We've been through the bluebonnets and indian blanket. The yellows you see in the distance are the Mexican Hat and brown-eyed susans. The sunflowers along the highways are opening up, too.
Lots of yellows this year, just different shades. Cactus and mesquite are also in bloom.
(https://i.ibb.co/LZymSWW/2021-04-18-Apiary-Wildflowers-4.jpg) (https://ibb.co/LZymSWW)
(https://i.ibb.co/zQqQ2Fk/2021-04-18-Prickly-Pear-Blooms-1.jpg) (https://ibb.co/zQqQ2Fk)
(https://i.ibb.co/z8ww50N/2021-04-12-Mesquite-Blooms-2.jpg) (https://ibb.co/z8ww50N)
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WM, the weather channel says you have some more rain coming this weekend. Enjoy!
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WM, the weather channel says you have some more rain coming this weekend. Enjoy!
We will. Maybe we'll be reduced from Severe Drought to Mild Drought! If you'll notice the single Sunflower above, it has a few drops of rain on it. We didn't get a measurable amount of rain that day, but even the few drops we got were cause for celebration.