Bee Tree

**kyratshooter** · 02-23-2016, 09:38 AM

How many folks here have encountered a hive of wild bees outside the urban environment?

I know Crash has talked about moving swarms in the past as part of his job, but I was wondering about the frequency of encounters in the wild.

I have never encountered a wild hive myself.

I know from my historical studies that the settlers and early hunters used to follow bees to their hives whenever possible and the harvested honey and wax was a valuable commodity on the frontier.

**Old Professor** · 02-23-2016, 10:29 AM

Yes, many years ago we found a bee tree on my uncles farm. We waited until a very cold winter day and then cut the tree down and harvested the honey. We still used a smoker to tranquilize the bees although the cold took care of that pretty quickly. As I recall, we got two turkey roasting pans of honey comb that we processed for the honey.

**hunter63** · 02-23-2016, 12:09 PM

I found one while deer hunting on paper company land back in the 1980's....

They own huge tracks of land and have turned them into pine plantations.

It was a early in the fall season and the bees were really working to fill up an old hollow oak snag.

Didn't do anything with it but thought about a visit during the winter....never got back there.

Following year I found that location clear cut......must have cut it over the winter...that tree was gone.

I do watch on warm day in spring and fall, but haven't seen another in the wild.
Have seen bees....but wild hives are not in white boxes.

Was at a friends wood working shop (business)....weather was threatening big storm....saw a stream of bees heading into a couple of hole in the eaves.
He called a bee guy, and he came over got the hive....emptied some honey, but a lot of it was nasty....so just cleaned it out.

I though these were yellow jacket hornets at first....but were honey bees.

A lot of hives have died out and in short supply..... I'm thinking found wild hives are at a premium.....?

Will continue to watch for them.

**ClayPick** · 02-23-2016, 01:49 PM

In my neck of the woods the bear beat you to it everytime.

**randyt** · 02-23-2016, 07:05 PM

There's been a few bee trees around my area, darn few. There's a book by James Fenimore Cooper called The Bee Hunter, been wanting to read it.

**kyratshooter** · 02-23-2016, 08:03 PM

The "long hunters" were famous for hunting bee hives. They used a small box with a sliding lid to capture a honey bee using some kind of sweet as bait.

When they released the bee it would make a bee-line for the hive and they would follow the line to find the hive.

**hunter63** · 02-23-2016, 08:07 PM

As the area around "The Place" is famous for orchards......most bees head for the white boxes.

**randyt** · 02-23-2016, 08:33 PM

bee lining works pretty good, a little blue chalk to dab on the bee when she is in the box helps to keep a eye on it and when it comes back for more bait it can be identified.

**crashdive123** · 02-23-2016, 08:36 PM

The wild or feral hives are still doing fine. It has been mostly the managed hives that have suffered from CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). They still aren't 100% sure of the cause, but I believe a lot of it is from the extreme stresses placed on the commercial hives.