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Author Topic: Feral Bees  (Read 3404 times)

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Offline lazy shooter

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Feral Bees
« on: February 19, 2016, 04:49:14 pm »
This April will make me five years with honey bees.  I started with three packages from Rweaver in Navasota, Texas.  One package was lost that first summer.  The other two packages survived on sugar water and lots of inexperience.  Being an engineer and thinking of treating versus non treating, I decided to treat one hive and never to treat the other.  The hive I treated died two years later.  It may have just been the fault of the drought that was with us until last year.  These bees never made a surplus of honey. 

I was looking at these bees today from the outside.  They are now in one 10 frame deep and two 10 frame mediums.  There appeared to be large population of bees and they are flying their butts off and bringing in tons of pollen.  I am going to take a peek next week.  This hive of bees went through a supercedure the second summer they were in place.  They are hot as the hinges on the gates of hades, but they are survivors. 

I will know more next week.

lazy
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Offline Perry

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2016, 08:03:09 pm »
It seems the "hot" ones are usually the good producers, but I wouldn't want one that was miserable to deal with.
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Offline Wandering Man

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2016, 08:54:20 pm »
I've ordered two nuts from RWeaver. I'll pick them up the end of April.

Everything is starting to bloom now! I'm waiting impatiently. . .
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Offline Jen

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #3 on: February 20, 2016, 01:50:24 am »
Perry, I had my first very hot hive last summer. People and pets were getting stung. One day I had enough and sent the whole hive down river. Was sorry to do that but couldn't take it anymore  :sad:
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Offline brooksbeefarm

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2016, 09:26:31 am »
I'm with perry (hmmm ???) it's hard to get excited about the amount of honey a hive has made, when your taking hits and a cloud of bees so thick you can't see the frames when you take the lid off. I had two that way years ago :o, my uncle and i waited till dark and set them a fire. Jack
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Offline Lburou

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2016, 10:36:16 am »
I can attest to the aggressiveness of those bees of Lazy's.   Glad to hear they are surviving and prospering.   :)
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Offline apisbees

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2016, 11:30:42 am »
Divide, Conquer, Guillotine, and Requeen.
Divide- break apart the hive and move the brood 25 to 50 feet away from where the hive was Leave a honey supper on the original bottom board.
Conquer- this greatly reduces the population that you are dealing with at one time. the guard bees go back to guarding at the original hive location, the foragers are returning to the original hive location as well as bees that fly out of the hive. Now with 2 or 3 manageable bee populations finding the queen is much easier, In a few minutes you should be able to hear the difference between the super with the queen in it.
Guillotine, and Requeen- now that the task of finding the queen has been made easier and a less daunting and intimidating process. KILL HER and requeen.
Be prepared, Have your new queen ready to install, by the time you have the colony queen less and put back together It will know that it is queenless so the new queen in her cage can be placed in the hive.
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Offline tecumseh

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Re: Feral Bees
« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2016, 05:54:58 pm »
everyone needs to know that there are two weaver families (BWeaver and RWeaver) situated in Navasota, Tx and one sells 'no treatment' bees and as far as I know the other still treats.   no one should look at the two as selling the same product.  I know the proprietors of both but am closer both personally and in terms of my own bee keeping ways to one than the other.  most of my own stock is derived from BWeaver stock.  Personally I will allow a certain amount of defensive nature in bees it they survive and produce under my own no treatment regime but even this tolerance has a limit.  excessively defensive bees for me are prime bee resources form which to make splits or to rear queens.   
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