One sad shot of the dead swarm.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...m/DSCN6405.jpg
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One sad shot of the dead swarm.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...m/DSCN6405.jpg
Sorry for your loss, but sounds like things are going well now, which is great. The more I read your thread the more I would love to have a hive. Those little guys are awesome.
oh man,, this bums me out,,, sorry Ycc.Quote:
Originally Posted by your_comforting_company
It broke my heart too, but some things are just beyond our control. Nature has a way of humbling us like that. You just have to take it in stride and call it "learning".
Got busy building frames and painting hive bodies today, so I didn't finish the swarm bucket. Will finish it over the next day or two and post pics. Got two more possible colonies to relocate at some point before the nectar flow goes out in 9 months HAHAHA.
Gotta love the south and our long growing season.
My plan at this point is to get the suffering colony established, trap out one of the relocation colonies using my new queen and slack hive. That reminds me.. I made a bee escape trap today too.. will post pics of it and the swarm-bucket in the next few days, and explain how it works. Any bees I can add to that suffering colony will improve their odds of making a comeback.
You like making stuff so here's another project for your list. I saw this some time back on a TV show.
http://www.beesource.com/build-it-yourself/bee-vac/
http://www.beesource.com/files/beevac.pdf
That's a pretty neat contraption. Thanks Rick! I'll have to build one just for kicks!
A quick update without pics. New queen took right up to the suffering colony and a peek inside yesterday, revealed the bees grooming and building comb. I've been feeding them sugar-syrup because I don't see nearly as many foragers as I feel like they need, mostly because so many of them are still hatchlings that have not matured to be able to fly yet.
ACE hardware uptown has a nice little "car vac" that will work well with the bee vac. Just gotta save up $35 for the motor and the bee-vac will be in business! http://www.acehardware.com/product/i...628083.1259528
I've also come into some info about a product called "bee-gone". It's a liquid normally used to usher bees out of honey supers so you can collect the honey frames. It smells exactly like chicken manure farmers put out on their corn and it should also rightly be named "people-gone" too cause it smells like H-E-double-hockey-stick!
I will probably get a few drops from one of my keeper friends, apply it to some cotton balls and drop them into the colony that's in the brick pillar on a porch where neighbors son lives. Used in conjunction with the bee-escape, I might even get the queen to come out.
So many experiments and different ways to do things... Sometimes it's hard to decide which direction to go!
Updated pics of the swarm-catching-bucket:
I used my Weller soldering gun with the "hot knife" attachment to cut the circle from the lid, and a bernzomatic torch to heat a nail to poke holes for sewing the screen in place with wire. It's really a very simple project and yours doesn't have to be nearly this fancy.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6422.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6425.jpg
Completed lid, I left some loops in my stitches for hanging things like a queen cage (pictured). If you can catch the queen in a swarm, you will have lots of luck in getting the rest of the bees. I will likely modify this screen to include a one-way entrance.
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Hope that helps make sense of the bucket. Not much to it. Forgot to take pics of the bee escape.
Couldn't resist posting a pic of the healthy colony. This was on an afternoon that was about 95 degrees out. I had wondered if this was typical behavior; apparently if it's too hot inside, bees will move outside to make room for air flow. This is my original nuc colony that has literally exploded from (just a guess on the numbers) somewhere around 3000 bees to probably 10,000 bees in the scant few weeks since I brought them home.
notice the Rumex acetocella on the right hand side of the entrance.:detective:
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Requeening the suffering colony. These pics are several days old by now.
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Cool pics as usual.
What is the purpose of the queen cage? Is it just to acclimatize the colony to the queen without actually letting them get to her?
On the bee vac, I also saw one that was made out of a vacuum truck for sucking prairie dogs out of their holes!!!! Just stick the hose down the hole and zoooooooop! instant prairie dog.
Just to quickly clarify what I think are "unnecessary" cuts:
This is what's called a top-wedge style. The lateral cut is for the removable wedge, cut out with a utility knife. Foundation is inserted and wedge nailed back in place to hold the hooks on top.
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bottom bar
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I really think this 1/16" bevel is unnecessary and the ones I made myself work equally as well as these prefab frames
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6262.jpg
Foundation being placed in the bottom rail. Top wedge has been removed, and hopefully you can see the hooks on the top of the foundation.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6266.jpg
Yes. If a "strange" queen is just released into the hive, chances are good that she will be killed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rick
I saw a strange queen in Vancouver once. He was dressed all in white. Even his face was painted white. He did have a nice gown on though.
That was probably the queen that traveled from Mexico to Vancouver. Had it not been for the cage as "she" passed through Texas, "she" may have been killed.
In that case, it is more like a shark cage than a mode of transportation haha!
I was warned to keep an eye on her to make sure the workers didn't ball her up. I monitored for about 4 hours watching whether they were nursing her or not. You can watch them stick out their strawlike mouth parts and share with her. This colony had been queenless for too long to NOT want a new queen, but it's still good judgement to protect her to make sure they are accepting. A colony can reject a queen, as Crash pointed out and evict or kill her. The cage that hangs in the bucket is so that if I can find the queen in a swarm (you have to be pretty lucky as well as observant) I can cage her and hang her in a new hive and the colony will enter and start building under the illusion that she has accepted the home. Once they start building, she will accept their comb almost undoubtedly.
Bees are kinda picky.. except the guy bees.. they're like "whatever, honey!"
While the picture above would appear that the workers were trying to get to her to "ball her up" if that were the case, almost every bee in the hive would be on that cage. Ultimately, I just used my superhuman powers of observation to see them nursing her and going back to the sugar-water. Them babies wanted a new mama.
Been a while since I did an inspection on my original nuc colony, so Saturday I opened 'er up to see what kind of progress they were making on their honey stores and check for signs of pests or disease. A few good shots:
This is the first honey pot I added a few weeks ago. all frames are completely drawn, very near completely filled, and probaly 60% capped for honey stores. This is the outermost frame of the honey super (which must weigh as much as a bundle of shingles by now).
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Frame 2L
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Frame 6L You'll notice the extra drone cells along the bottom of this honey frame. I assume that the bees are setting beetle / mite traps along the "dead space" as sacrificial or hygeinic behavior.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6478.jpg
For the salvaged colony, which has been relocated to trap out some bees from an old house, I stole a frame of brood (see post above). They have drawn the inside of the frame and are working hard on the outside side. The inside had a few day-old eggs, which I could use to raise queens if I knew anything about that.. maybe next year.
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It's hard to tell from this pic, but the hive is FULL of bees. Population must have tripled or quadrupled since the last inspection.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6485.jpg
This frame is being used for pollen stores, mostly. Along the top you can see capped honey, and on the right side, capped brood. All the cells that appear empty are packed with pollen.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6486.jpg
This is the kind of density that is our primary goal. With this many bees on a frame, constantly cleaning and tending, it's darn near impossible for a mite or beetle to do any damage.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6488.jpg
Good pic of drones (males) on a worker brood frame. One has just emerged from the cell that has been chewed open. There are two males in this picture, can you spot them?
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6490.jpg
While this frame appears empty, the queen is making her way from cell to cell placing new eggs in a frame of freshly hatched workers. Can you spot the queen in this pic?
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6492.jpg
Just a couple cool shots of one of the girls foraging on some lillies
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I'll go tomorrow to check the status of the salvaged (lure) colony up at the farm, more pics of that to come (and probably some better explaining of the process). Been a busy week and terribly hot.
Enjoy!
As promised, I got some pics to share of the bee escape and lure hive. I'll throw a couple neat pictures in here too.
Late in the evening the ladies were just hanging out:
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Unless you open the hive, you really have nothing to fear. When just watching, this is how much "protective gear" I wear... even when less than 2 feet away from the entrance.
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The First thing you have to do when attempting to "trap out" bees, is close all the entrances and exits, except for one. I chose to use screen wire so that air could still circulate through the hive, but the bees cannot get back in any of their extra entrances.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6518.jpg
At the top exit, I fashioned a screen cone, about 18" long reinforced with wire. The wire helps hold the cone in position without sagging. The principle is simple. When bees leave their hive, they crawl to the exit and fly directly out in a more-or-less straight line, but when they return, they generally land on the wall, or landing strip, walk over to the entrance hole and re-enter. The cone prevents them from reaching the entrance. (while they are smart critters, they are definately not the smartest) The big end is roughly 6" diameter and the small exit end is roughly 3/8". You can tell by the cluster of bees above that they can't figure out how to get back in.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6523.jpg
The colony I salvaged is in the hive next to the exit. When the bees cannot figure out how to return to their queen, they'll go to the next available "home" with a leader. In this case, it's a ready hive with a new queen less than a foot from exit of the cone. I tried to get pictures of the (we'll call them feral even though they are just as gentle as my original) Feral bees assimilating with the salvaged colony, but they are so fast entering and exiting that most of them turned out blurry.. Sorry, but this is the best one I could get. The yellow blurs are the feral ladies joining the new queen.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6517.jpg
I was wearing just as much protective gear as above when I opened this hive to check the status of the queen and population. After a week, I would say I've added a few hundred bees to my colony. I found a small hole that I hadn't blocked last weekend, so after some minor blocking efforts, I felt that it was as good as I could do without tearing down the porch. The queen inside was healthy and I got to witness her laying eggs in an empty cell, though I didn't get to take a picture. I did get to share with the homeowner what a frame of bees and the queen looks like.. He's more happy to be working toward a front porch he can use LOL!
Anyhow, the cone is a simple concept. Using a homemade compass you simply draw a circle with a radius equal to the length of the cone. Draw an arc. In my case, the arc has a radius of 18".
The length of the arc is determined by how big you want the finished product. The large end of the cone needed to be 6" so I multiplied that by Pi (3.14) to get 18.84" or 19", then add an inch for sewing the thing together, so my arc length was 20". Same rules apply for the small end (0.375 x Pi = 1.18 or 1-1/4" plus lap).
Wire it together along the straight edges of the cone and you have it.
The main problem I saw was that when it was positioned at an angle, the bees couldn't figure out how to get out because they naturally leave in a straight line. Once I added a piece of wire and pulled it over perpendicular to the exit, they started pouring out.
I will most definately not get the queen out of this colony, as it is highly unlikely that she will abandon her eggs until most of the workers are found absent and pests begin to take over. Since it takes 16 days for a worker to hatch and another 13 days until they will leave the colony to forage, this will be a long ongoing process. If the queen continues to lay, I can expect new nurses to hatch that often. In other words, it'll be another week before the non-flying hatchlings that were present when I set up the trap last weekend will ever exit the colony.. Without more explanation I'm sure you can understand that it will be a long process.
Awesome looking stuff. Watching your bees evolve is pretty interesting.
Okra, Squash, and cucumbers are doing very well. Bees can be spotted all over the garden even before sunrise. With the drought in place, I must consider myself very lucky to live near a swampy area. A common roadside weed in my area that blooms this time of year and happens to like growing near swampy-wet areas is Great Rose Mallow (Hibiscus grandiflorus) also called by some "wild okra".
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I've spotted my bees on flowers in the ditch a few hundred yards from here, and on a dirt road on the way to work, I've spotted small german bees in them.
An unrelated note, I've also spotted wild potato vines (Ipomoea pandurata)growing and blooming in the same places as the wild okra (as grandma calls it)
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Not a good sign... This is from my healthy colony. One or two beetles is expected, but this many has me worried.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...s/DSCN6711.jpg
A fellow down at the lake called and said his fishing shack was infested with bees, so I went yesterday to check it out. This feral colony is apparently NOT africanized. Africanized bees have been found as close to my house now as Bainbridge (22 miles from here), as well as in Albany. Genetic testing has confirmed that the two cases were africanized, both of which resulted in death.
This colony is not aggressive so I feel safe to say they are italians. I took these pictures barefoot and wearing no shirt, and as close as 2 feet from their entrance. My oldest boy went with me, but he had a banana for snack yesterday so he wouldn't approach. No stings or aggressive behavior is a good sign that this is a strong, yet well behaved colony. I did get bumped once or twice, but keep in mind I was blocking their flight path, so that's understandable.
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Going to rig up another bee-escape and use my non-standard hive to house them. The gentleman gave me full permission to remove siding as needed to get the bees out. I hope to be able to find the queen, cage her, and hang her inside the hive, luring her daughters into the hive, then disassemble the wall to remove the comb, and put it in cages in that hive. Sounds like a better plan than scrapping the non-standard hive. Wish me luck!
That siding looks like asbestos siding. If it is it will snap at the blink of an eye. Use a dust protector, as well since you don't want to breath in any fibers if it does break. That stuff is just super brittle.
YCC - also keep in mind that while an Africanized colony is more aggressive, they normally only display that aggressiveness when they feel threatened. As you have said, the only way to know for sure (in cases where they do not seem aggressive) is to send them off for DNA testing.
cautions duly noted!
I'll stop by the building supply on my way down there and grab a few dust masks. I'm sure they'll clog pretty quick with all the sweat combined with the dust, and I'll definately wear long-sleeves and other safety equipment for handling bees, including smoker, just in case. Once I start tearing into the hive, I'm sure I'll find out pretty quick if they are aggressive.
I have a little bit of that type siding left on my house. It probably is asbestos.. Looks like the same stuff.
When I worked outside I hated to pull up to a house that had that stuff on it. The slightest pressure will crack it. You can't drill it, pry it, poke it or swear at it without it cracking. I've tried it all.
Finally caught up to the man on the phone, and we talked for a little while. It is definately asbestos. Still he wants the bees out of his house, whatever it takes. Gonna be a fairly big project.. Water sprayer bottle to keep dust down, tarp to catch breaking pieces.. THEN I have the plywood and bees to deal with.
Still trying to get a functional plan together.. really should have built that bee-vac already, that would make it really easy.
On a more positive note, I'm finally making some progress with the trapping down the road. Bees had formed a "beard" on parts of the porch, so I misted them with water, brushed them off into my swarm bucket, and dumped them in with my bees, and they took to the new queen with ecstacy and vigor, immediately moving into foraging mode.
There is one more bee class tomorrow, regarding extracting honey. I'll have to build my own extractor (they are pretty expensive to buy). I hope it doesn't get cancelled due to rain. This is the last major lesson, and the rest of the learning process can only be from experiences, which I'm getting plenty of. Had yet another fellow mention he needed bees removed yesterday at the building supply.. I need more boxes!!
I don't know how houses are built down there but up here those built during that time frame used a tongue and groove beneath the asbestos. I'm sure that was to seal drafts as much as anything so you might not have it in your warmer weather. Just wanted to give you a mental picture of what you'll have before you get there.
this thing was thrown together. really a fishing "shack" some of it's plywood, some cedar, some is tin, some is that old cardboard stuff (masonite?). You can definately tell that it started off as a one-room shack and was added to, here and there over many years.
Admittedly I'm a bit apprehensive about this project LOL.
I've had to demo a few asbestos sided walls. You'll already be pretty well covered because of the bees, but I'd recommend either a full face respirator or a respirator and goggles rather than a dust mask.
When you climb out of your bee suit, make sure that you bag it - leave the respirator on until you do.
Carefully pulled the nails with vice-grips, and didn't break a single piece of siding. Got each piece good and damp with water before I even tried to move any. Haven't had a chance to upload the pics yet, but I got a few, and a couple videos I have to edit together. What I thought might have been 16" or 2 feet wide, turned out to be a 5 foot wide gap, 3-1/2 feet high completely filled with comb. Looks like I'll get honey this year!
I filled two 5-gallon buckets over the top with honeycomb, pure, clean honey from this year, and got 7 frames of brood in frames I rigged with kite string to make cages. It was a good opportunity to use the odd-size hive I built.
I tossed any comb that looked tainted, or spotted a mite (drone cells) or a beetle (the bottom 12 inches or so).
The trick to getting the bees in the box was misting them with a little water, and using a wisk-brush to sweep them onto a small piece of wood, then dump them into the box. They can't fly with wet wings.
Only got stung 5 times (3 legit), twice on the left shoulder, one on the back left hip, once on the back of my right shoulder, and once on the finger where I accidentally mashed one grabbing a tool. The whole endeavor took right at 9 hours to complete, and I'd guess I got 75-80% of the bees... literally thousands.
I didn't reinstall the siding yet, I've gotta go back this weekend, probably, and make double-sure I got as many bees as possible and make sure I sealed all their entrance holes.
Not sure I got the queen, never did lay eyes on her, but I did collect all the "bunches" of bees that clustered in the corners, and judging by the way bees were taking to the screened cover on the hive, I think I got her, but not sure. I'll give them a couple days to settle down, then check it out. If I can't get a queen for them (if I didn't get their queen) I'll just add their numbers to my weak colony, give a couple frames of honey, and hope for the best!
The man didn't have a bee "colony" in his house, he had a bee PROBLEM!
pics coming soon!
Strange enough, I can handle bees all day, and not dream about them, but if I get stung, it's all I dream about.. like last night.
I will be building a bee-vac in the next week or two. I still have two more houses that need bees removed, so look for a brief build-along for that project.
Oh, yeah.. Bee class on Saturday was really fun. I uncapped a LOT of honey frames, got to talk to people about bees and reduce their fears a bit (the event was open to the public), and got to help reinstall the extracted frames back on the hives. Bounced around a lot of ideas, had good laughs, great lunch, and picked up a new book about bee pests and diseases. I probably would have backed out of the removal job if it hadn't been for the class. I was so inspired that I came home and fixed up my mis-sized box to hold comb for the removal. Wiregrass beekeepers are some good people from all walks of life. Amazing how people who are so different can be unified by a common interest. One of the instructors is going to be extracting his honey next Saturday and invited me over to help and possibly extract my 9-frame super, but I think I'll let my bees hang on to all their honey this year to overwinter.
Got invited to a hog-extermination hunt next weekend, too... No rest for the wicked!
Oh, yeah.. @ Crash, tho it was too hot to keep the respirator on the whole time, clothing went straight into the washing machine. Can't bee too careful with that asbestos!
First peek looked promising, like it wouldn't bee to big of a job. Then reality hit me on the left shoulder (Ouch!). The white comb on the right side is honey, the darker comb on the left is brood comb, for raising more bees.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6814.jpg
Densely populated and heavily worked comb that was exceptionally clean, considering it's location.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6815.jpg
A particularly useful photo, as one of the first things I saw was this Queen Cell.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6816.jpg
I was not able to find the queen, but many of the cells had viable day-old eggs that the workers can use to raise new queens. Todays "peek" revealed that they are doing so.
Second hacking at the wall revealed even more comb.. it just kept going!
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Careful removal of "squares" of brood comb. My odd-sized frames got rigged with kite string to make a cage of sorts to hang the comb.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6822.jpg
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Third peek revealed even MORE comb
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6826.jpg
Some pure clean honey from this year.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6825.jpg
Got two 5-gallon buckets full of honeycomb. I saved as much of the brood comb as possible in the cages, and resorted to gently placing the honeycomb in the buckets as I ran out of frames to hang it in. I will be using some of this in more string cages (or maybe rubber bands) and just let the bees have it back for their winter stores so there won't be so much pressure on them as "dry time" is approaching.
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The worst sting came when I was trying to re-tuck my shirttail in and apparently one of the ladies was in one of the folds of my shirt. OUCH!!
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I didn't want them to get too hot in transport, so I closed off the front of the hive with screen and used some extra screen as a lid, with "universal glue" aka duct tape, to keep it on.
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This picture is probably the most important picture in this post. If I had captured the queen, the bees would not be building queen cells. The round-capped cells pictured here are queen cells being built. Closer inspection reveals that each one has a white jelly with a larva floating inside. The white substance is "royal jelly" and is the ONLY thing that makes a difference whether a fertilized egg becomes a worker or queen. I will have queens hatching from this small piece of comb within the next 16 days. Queens take the least time of all the bees to hatch.
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Much cleaning and construction is taking place inside the hive. This picture shows the density of the bees on the salvaged comb. Much of it is already attached to the frames, and the ladies are busy raising queen cells and stabilizing the combs. They are also ridding the comb of any pests like SHB and varroa. Many of the drone cells proved to have mites on the larvae, so I culled any comb that I suspected were contaminated, and probably can only contribute the queen cells above to "Dumb @$$ luck", since the piece pictured above was actually going to be thrown away, but for some reason I held on to it.
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In this picture you can see that I actually left that comb on the outside of the hive, and when I got home from work yesterday, I noticed that it had been attached to the outside of the box. Closer inspection revealed the queen cells on the back side so I placed it inside a cage and put it inside the box. I only saved it so that the ladies could scavenge whatever honey was left on it, and somehow the universe smiled on me and blessed me with 5 queen cells on a 6" x 6" piece of comb. Finally, it's my lucky day!
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6841.jpg
In summary, I'm glad I spent 8 hours collecting these bees. Still have two more houses on my list that need bees removed, so I have to build more hives, but priority calls for building a bee-vac first.
Also, I do not recommend doing something like this by yourself. The danger involved in the possibility of them being africanized is very real. I took an epipen with me just in case, and could only hope that I'd make the 20 mile drive back to town before anaphylactic shock got the best of me (provided I would be able to drive). Too bad for me, I don't have any friends locally that would accompany me. I don't have many friends that are interested in anything I do, for that matter.. What I'm saying... use good sense. I've been known to do stupid things that pose a real danger to my survival from time to time.
Does anybody know just how much time an epipen would have bought me if I had been stung a deadly number of times?
That's an amazing set of photos. Either that hive had been there a long time or they've been busy as a ... well, you know. I'm amazed at how adaptable they are. Change of queen, change of housing, neither seem to bother them.
I don't know much about the epi pen. I checked their web site and it says that one injection may not be enough. That's why they come in 2 unit cartons. If you are allergic to bee stings then I'd suggest you talk to your doctor about what your options are. What if you are not able to self administer?
YCC - great pics. You saved the home owner a lot of money. A pest control company that does bee removal charges a pretty penny for a job like that.
The neighbor said she thought two years, but that's an aweful lot of comb and honey to be such a short time, I would think... The house was 50 yards from the lake, tho, so maybe resources really were just that abundant?
My epipen box does have two units.
I didn't do the greatest job getting into the house, but I put wood in the walls to add support at the cuts. Still have to return this weekend to see if I can collect more bees (if any are left) and make sure I've blocked them out before reinstalling the siding (which I'm going to try to talk him out of...)
A fellow at the class said his minimum charge for bee removal was $600 and only included putting back what was removed, but many jobs would end up costing more if the removal is more invasive. He makes a living doing nothing but bee removals and the resulting remodelings...
I am amazed at their resilience. For anything to survive such trauma is a feat unto itself. To recover is nothing short of a miracle.
Filled 9 string-frames with honeycomb yesterday, and the unsalvagable comb got turned into wax and honey. From ONE of the 5-gallon buckets we got almost 2 gallons of honey, put into pints and an old mayo jug. Still have about 1/5 of the comb to process (squeeze out the honey) left in the bucket. It took the better part of the day to thaw it out and save what I could in the baskets.
There were 5 pints, but we confiscated one this morning for coffee since we ran out of sugar.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6876.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6875.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6877.jpg
Got this much comb left to squeeze..
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6878.jpg
and the 5 gallon bucket was reduced to this much wax...
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...l/DSCN6880.jpg
(those are fig preserves in the background..)
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...1/DSCN6879.jpg
Mmm, loks good. You're gonna be overrun with bees and honey soon enuf.
And it never goes bad. Probably the most perfectist food. Gooder than most that's for sure.
I have to hand it to you, YCC. This is one of the best ever threads. I'm fascinated by bees so I guess I've enjoyed following it a bit more. But I do appreciate all the work you've gone to posting the pictures and the explanations. Thanks!!!
On another note, we seem to have far more honey bees around this year. The last couple of years we haven't had many. It was rare to see one. This year they are pretty prolific. Hopefully there is a wild nest nearby (just not in my attic!).
Well done YCC.
Thanks for the compliments!
I'm really glad I have friends to share this with, even if it is around the virtual campfire.
The presence of bees could mean there is a new beekeeper in the area. Everything growing in my neighborhood seems to be doing better and the neighbors say they see bees all over the place. They aren't just benefiting me, but everyone around me. If you do have a feral colony nearby, they will be very hardy, even if they do have more exposure to pests and predators. If you can locate their hive, you could feed them sugar-syrup over the winter months to aid in their survival. Even if you don't care to have an apiary, the feral colony will help pollinate all the goodies in your garden. So far north, you should have no problems with africanized bees.