hmm, I may have to look into it then sometime in the future. I don't really have the means right now to be buying a bunch of stuff for the bees though. Thanks for all the info.
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hmm, I may have to look into it then sometime in the future. I don't really have the means right now to be buying a bunch of stuff for the bees though. Thanks for all the info.
It can definately get expensive. That's why I liked making my own stuff out of scrap wood. The only expense is really the foundation and the sugar-water.
On a positive note, one of my neighbors found the swarm that escaped. Got them all boxed up and locked in with a jar of syrup. Screen front so they nor the queen can escape, and this time I used two drawn frames from my first colony as an incentive to get them to stay. I used my equipment to get them out of the tree (veil and gloves), but once I got them home, I took it all off and worked them with no shirt, veil or gloves. Just a little spray bottle of water and a smooth stick to rake them into the hive. Very gentle bees. Gotta love that. Thousands of bees on my bare skin and not a single sting!
Now if I can just get them all out of my hair before bed LOL.
I'm giddy with joy that I got my babies back babies back babies back.
YCC - I know nothing about bees and I've stayed out of this thread because of it. I've enjoyed following you on it. I just couldn't help envisioning you walking into a colony of Africanized bees with only a veil and gloves. I know in this case your neighbor had already worked with them so you knew what you had but, as I understand it, you folks have the Africanized in your neck of the woods so I just wanted to throw out a caution to you on those colonies that are strangers to you. Just concerned about your safety.
You don't have to know anything about bees to be able to tell if a colony is africanized. You wouldn't get within 10 feet of an African queen without getting stung. If you encounter a colony that seems particularly aggressive, it's best to leave them alone and call an experienced beekeeper (i.e. I'm not very experienced).
And I'm not saying that to Rick in particular, but to bring it to the attention of everyone who's following along. There was an article on the front page of the Albany Herald about it on Sunday. The only way to tell for sure is through genetic testing, but their behavior will tell you a lot about that colony. Time of day/year, temperature, and weather all play parts in how they behave, and so do particular smells. All that must be taken into account in your survey of the colony BEFORE you try to handle them with or without equipment.
It's the time of year for swarms, so if you hear a strange buzz in the air, and have not been stung yet, you've probably got a nice colony of Italians. Don't freak out and pour gas on them.. With Africans, you'll most likely be stung or at least bumped a few times before you even hear the hum.
I appreciate your concern very much, Rick. I must admit that some of my actions are not textbook, and most people wouldn't dare walk out half naked into a field of bees, nor buckskin.. not even experienced beekeepers. The only way I can justify my actions is through handling, and training (which is still not good justification). Experience is the best teacher. The classes and continued support from my keeper friends really has helped me to be confident and unafraid. Eventually I will learn my lesson, I'm sure. Till then, I'm going to push myself to continue without fear. A few hours of working that colony with equipment on, let me know that these bees were very much safe. A few minutes of working them without equipment let me know that they are not aggressive or threatened. With the knowledge from the classes, and simple observations in the field, I am getting a "feel" for them.
A few tips for non-beekeepers: If a bee lands on you and doesn't sting you, dont' swat it. You'll make it mad and probably get stung. If it starts flapping it's wings and you feel the vibration, don't freak out, she's just cooling down. If she starts to hum while crawling, she's just saying "hi, nice to meet you. We can bee friends". In a few minutes of determining whether you're friend or foe, she will most likely fly off and rejoin her group. As kids we are taught to be afraid of them, like snakes, but that's just not the reality.
By the way, the neighbor that called is allergic to bees and did not handle them at all. He stayed well away from them and called me. From his perspective, every bee could mean death. As Rick suggests, it is very dangerous to do as I did. Follow your own instincts and if you sense something isn't right, get away and make a phone call. African queens are extremely dangerous.
I do appreciate your reinforcement that bees are really friendly. As a kid, we had a couple of elderly Italian brothers in our neighborhood. They had prolific roses and the big black and yellow bumble bees loved them. The old guys would very often reach down and let one of the bumble bees walk onto his hand to show us kids. They always said the bees wouldn't sting and as far as I know neither ever got stung but we always backed up when they moved our way with the bees.
The big black ones are carpenter bees. You'll notice the males have white faces (at least I think it's the males). The ones with white faces don't have stingers, so they can't sting you even if you do make them mad lol.
Bumble bees aren't much bigger than honeybees and live in nests in the ground, usually in the straw in flower beds. They are excellent pollinators too!
I know when my Grandpa had bees all he used was a little smoke to clam them, no suit or the like. Maybe your smoky buckskin has that effect on them?
The only time I've ever been stung is when I swat at or accidentally sit on or squish a bee. When you hunt wild edibles bees are everywhere, especially when the flowers are blooming. They will fly in my face and land on me, but as long as I don't show fear and panic or try to swat them away I never get bit. I just let them crawl about, buzz my face or what have you and they eventually go about their way. I'm also careful as I pick edibles not to accidentally squish any bees or disturb any nests, etc.
I'm surprised the swarm of bees was so mellow, as I'd think they'd be a bit angry over all the commotion they've seen recently.
Hard to compare size on that pic, but that looks like a carpenter to me. Bumble bees have less yellow.
http://pestcemetery.com/wp-content/u...stcemetery.jpg
@ rwc. If one is buzzing around your face, it is attracted to the carbon dioxide in your breath. Usually if you stop breathing for a few seconds, they'll just go away. I applaud your fearlessness with them also, and the care you take not to harm any. Experience with your grampa taught you how to behave around them I'm sure.
And a bit of great news. I managed to cage the queen tonight! The swarm will stay in the box now and I can clip her wings in a day or two, once her scent has filled it and they start drawing comb.. Which they started on frame 6 today and many were eating from 4 & 5. Took me a few tries to catch the queen but I got her.
During all that commotion, a few crawled up my pants legs and stung me as I was moving around. I imagine I squished them a little while they were in there and that's why. I hate that those couple bees will die, but the stings were totally worth it to cage that lovely lady! No doubt now that any stragglers will adopt the hive. Was too dark to take any good pictures, so maybe in a day or two I can get pics of clipping and tagging her in the cage.
So this is where I am: Original colony is FULL, and very busy. Might need to add another honey super next week. Salvaged colony is still building though I think they are still queenless. Might merge them with this new swarm. Latest colony lost quite a few in transition, but still very populated, and now that the queen is trapped, they'll make a new home there. One great hive, one bad hive, and one starting anew.
I gotta build some more boxes and frames!!
And a side note: the stings are more like ant bites than the torture most folks make it sound like. Not like getting stung by a wasp AT ALL.
It's a bumble bee, not a carpenter bee. They look the same except the carpenter bee will have a "shiny hiny".
Thanks for clearing that up Crash. I thought bumble bees were smaller. Fuzzy butt is bumble. Shiny hiney is carpenter. Good way to remember! It's all in the little details :D
The stings are itchy more than anything.. About to scratch the skin off one. The itch is far worse than the little sting. I've had burns from making fire that hurt worse than the sting. Might take a benadryl to see if it helps, but I really hate taking medicine.
A quick update: The swarm didn't survive. It almost looked like they had gotten into some sort of poison that proliferated all through them after I caught the queen in a cage and clipped her wings. Once I let her out of the cage, she disappeared the next day and all the bees were dead. At least I tried, though I failed. I took it pretty hard, but some things are simply beyond our control. Talking with some of my keeper friends made me feel much better after I beat myself up for it all day.
The salvaged colony with old comb got infested with hive beetles and wax moths. Looked like most of the hatchlings were out, so I removed the contaminated combs and disposed of it. The commercial keeper from Atlanta is supposed to be bringing me a hygeinic (sp) queen when he comes to collect his migratory hives this weekend, so hopefully they'll be able to make a comeback. They are actually drawing cells on the new frames and foundation I gave them and making queen cells on it, even without eggs. Introducing a fertile queen (if she takes) should really help that colony grow back to strong numbers. The rotten honey smelled horrible, so I think they'll be much happier now without all those maggots crawling around on one side of their box, and the stench gone. They are hanging in there like real champs, so I'm gonna keep trying them.
My original nuc colony is doing so good that I had to add another honey super on top today. They have drawn the first honey pot to 95% and filled it to about 80% capacity. As they continue to dry and fill it, they should start capping frames some time this week, and start the next pot really soon. There are so many bees in it that I had trouble taking the frames out to check the capacity. I felt like they needed more room. It's possible that I could harvest some honey this year, but I think I'll let them overwinter with whatever they make this year and try getting actual honey for personal use next year, along with making a split. two full honey pots would make an excellent split!
Sorry.. no pics today. Gotta get batteries.
I read...I'll have to see if I can find the article...but I read that it's a mite that has been killing off the bees. That apparently it's a mite that other animals and insects deal with...but because bees are so busy collecting pollen, they don't clean themselves as much as other insects, so the mite sets in, is brought back to the colony, where they all get infected and die. Have you been able to find any stragglers? Maybe you would be able to see if it's the mite. I would hate for you to bring a new colony into an infected hive.
I'm a huge honey lover...I love that you do this. :)
Good news! I've found a series of Solitary Bee colonies in one of the raised beds. I think they're Andrena haemorrhoa ssp. I've marked the nests so I don't disturb them when I'm weeding. I found yet another way to waste my time, as if chicken watching weren't enough....
Trabitha, the colony that died was healthy a few days before. seems strange that so many would die all at once. Trachael mites can't be cleaned as they enter the bees airways and lay eggs. They are microscopic so it's not something I can check without spending a ton of money on lab work. Varroa mites, by comparison, are large enough to be seen with the naked eye on the bees. Neither mite would be able to kill an entire colony of thousands of bees in the span of 3 days, I wouldn't think. There might have been 10 bees left in there still alive. Long story short, a beekeeper caught the swarm, gave them to me, I housed them, they left, I caught them again down the road, re-housed them, then they died. Could have been stress, but I'm really leaning toward pesticide. Mites just wouldn't be able to do that sort of damage that quickly.
Winnie. I'm really glad you've marked them. They will help all your flowers and herbs when it gets warm enough for them to forage. Even solitary bees are colonial for part of the year and as they reproduce, numbers and yields will also increase. I'm glad I posted this thread up, if only for the sake of educating a few folks about NOT destroying bees. That post makes it totally worth it. Thanks for sharing.
Bee watching is very rewarding, imo, because you can see which plants they like the best, how they exploit a resource by priority, and you can compare plants that you know they foraged, to plants that might not be, to see the effect the bees have on the yield.
Andarena haemorroah (they resemble our "german" bees)
This brings up the obvious question for me. By gathering rogue bees and bringing them home do you run the risk of contaminating the other clean hive/s?
It sucks they all died, mass suicide?
mayan bees? any tips on finding and domesticating swarms in east texas?
@rwc. Theres little risk of cross contamination. Bees know their queen (somehow) and will only stray from her if it is impossible to reach her, or she dies or swarms away. If mature beetles or mites, or diseases like foulbrood are inside the combs, there is a possibility of some reaching other hives, though not very likely simply because each colony guards it's hive entrance to not let "strangers" in which could be carriers. Foulbrood is a bacteria that reproduces by spores; that means one infected cell on a comb has literally billions of seeds to spread by robbers or simply on the wind. I wish I could give a more concrete answer, so I'll say the risk is "generally minimal".
@ravenscar. It's getting on in the season to be finding swarms, but it's still possible. IF you are prepared to catch a swarm (meaning you have your ppe and a hive ready), the easiest way is to register as a keeper (not sure about texas laws) and call all the local law enforcement agencies and emergency responders to get on their list. I'm listed with the Sheriff, city police, fire department, forestry agency, DOT, and Cooperative Extension office. There are other folks who have been on that list for years and they would certainly get the call before I did, but if they turn down a swarm, at least I'm in line.
I'm going to make a swarm-bucket today. I'll take pictures of it for you. basically just a chlorine tablet bucket with the screw on lid (rinse it out really well). The lid is cut out to replace the center portion with wire screen so the bees can get air. Lots of techniques come into play when trying to catch them and you'll likely have to improvise. On a tree limb, I tied a sheet in the tree under the swarm, misted them with water, and just shook them off, then poured them in the bucket. In the case of a swarm under something like a mailbox, you'd simply brush them gently into the bucket after misting them with water so they can't fly.
I must stress that you are in Texas with seemingly high occurrences of Africanized bees, so protective gear is critical, and knowing a little bit about bees ahead of time will be a big help in determining if they are africanized. If you're not sure, best to just leave them alone or call an expert.
Feral colonies can be very difficult to domesticate. Probably the easiest way is to find the queen in that swarm, clip her wings and cage her for a few days. When her scent has filled the hive and the bees have started drawing comb, they've accepted their new home, and you can set her free from the cage.
Also.. as you can see from my recent experience, none of this is failproof and you should expect failure just as much as success.
Remember, I'm new to this...
I opened up the suffering colony yesterday and introduced a new queen to them. After being queenless for two weeks, this 500 or so bees readily took to her. This is a peek inside the suffering colony. Many of them are along the wall and others are drawing comb on frame 1. With such a low population I had to rob a comb of brood from my strong colony so she'd have someplace to lay her eggs, and to give them some honey and pollen to use.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6409.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6410.jpg
Nurse bees were tending her overnight and into the afternoon. It's a good sign they've accepted her. It's also pretty cool to watch them feed her while she's caged. Cage design is really simple. One end is blocked with a cork, the other with candy that is basically cake icing. The candy has no smell. Before I placed her in the hive, I observed that the queen herself smelled like flowers, very reminiscent of lillies.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6411.jpg
At this point it was time to rob the strong colony, which got them pretty mad at me. I still didn't get stung, but I must credit that to wearing my PPE. I was constantly getting bumped.. That's them saying "Hey! Get the heck outta here!" A peek inside the strong colony showed bees top to bottom, very crowded, keeping the hive clean. This is the best way to force them to do maintenance. If you look back at the first pictures of the nuc colony installed, and compare the population to these pics, you'll see that they've exploded into a healthy colony.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6414.jpg
.. and since I had it open, I checked on the queen, so seems to be more plump now.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6415.jpg
After a few hours of hanging in her new hive with the salvaged bees they still hadn't eaten the candy away, so I had to release her. By afternoon, she had made her way into the crowd of bees and onto the fresh comb. Sorry for the blurry pictures.
Can you spot the queen?
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6416.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6417.jpg
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6418.jpg
I have not checked on them this morning, I'd actually like to wait about two weeks before I open them again, but by evening yesterday, the bees behavior had changed, from basically idle, to increased flights and foraging, many tending the frame of brood, many drawing and almost all of them cleaning each other and the hive. Amazing creatures in that way, but it's funny that they seemed "lost" and directionless while they were queenless.
Here's a bee that was tagging along while I was preparing. Most of the bees were covered in wax like this one before queening.. They were aimless and just doing their most basic habits.
http://i248.photobucket.com/albums/g...0/DSCN6408.jpg
Compare that picture to the pictures of the queen on the comb and you'll see that only a few hours later, the bees had cleaned themselves and were much more industrious. One bit of great news is that I didn't spot a varroa mite ANYWHERE, and there were no eggs present to support hive beetle infestation. IF this colony is able to come back from the brink of destruction, they should prove to be healthy and clean for a long time. Guess we'll find out!