buzzzzzzzzzz new adventure

[tbendl]

To be fair Marlee I usually check the pond first before the hubby soooo.... Guilty! Lol

 

[addy1]

lol I say hi to Missy before poor hubby (our yorkie) if I have been gone, she gives you no choice.
The bees and pond see them all the time since we are here.

 

[Marlee Clark]

He said he did lose one queen with the mite away because we had a freak hot day the day after he put the strips in.

 

[addy1]

I read that was a chance so we are only using oav

 

[MitchM]

We can feed you royal jelly, make you a queen bee!

I always suspected that of HARO!

 

[addy1]

SAD SAD SAD day for men!

While zapping the bees for mites, after I opened up the hives again, I watched a gal bee dragging out a drone bee from the hive. The poor drone was hanging on to the landing board for dear life, to the best of its ability. But the tiny worker just kept dragging and dumped it onto the ground.

The drones (men) are on their way out to their fall death. If they don't leave easily the gals sting them to death, then drag out the bodies. Seeing drone bodies around the hives, that is a true indicator they are preparing for winter.

 

[tbendl]

The drones (men) are on their way out to their fall death. If they don't leave easily the gals sting them to death, then drag out the bodies.

Now I have the song "What a Wonderful World" going through my head... Bahahaha, Tough to be a boy bee.

 

[addy1]

Been a while since I posted here, they keep us busy, way busier than the pond. The pond is zero care luckily, the bees keep us cranking.

Our friends were out of country so we inspected their hives, one is ready to swarm. Tons of swarm cells, no eggs uncapped brood etc. So I started reading how to stop a swarm, we did something called a shook swarm, using a Taranov board . Basically take out all of the frames shake all of the bees onto a sheet, the workers fly back to the hive, the queen and nurse bees march up the sheet and make a cluster. IE a fake swarm. The nurse bees surround the queen.

The workers go back home since they can fly, some of them convert back to nurse bees to care for the swarm cells and capped brood left, the new queen to be, other workers stay as workers to gather food.

The swarm hive, fake swarm, with the queen, some of the nurse bees become workers, others stay as nurse bees, hopefully the queen starts laying again and we did not harm her.

Here are a few pictures I did a video but it is a hour plus from uploading. It was a cool post rainy day, so most of the bees where home, i.e we had a ton of bees flying around and landing on us. That is my pocket loaded with bees.

The screen captures off the gopro are a little dark.

 

[addy1]

A longish gopro

 

[sissy]

I saw a show on tv urban conversion that was talking about colony collapse and the mites and they have a new strain of bees that will kill the bees in the hive that are infected and also they are introducing Russian bees that do not have this problem .Urban conversion is a pbs show .

 

[j.w]

A longish gopro

I watched the first minute and I will watch the rest of it when I get back from my walk. You guys are funny, Honey we need to get busy and work..............your famous last words

 

[Tula]

Fascinating and a little unnerving!

 

[addy1]

I saw a show on tv urban conversion that was talking about colony collapse and the mites and they have a new strain of bees that will kill the bees in the hive that are infected and also they are introducing Russian bees that do not have this problem .Urban conversion is a pbs show .

We have some Russian bees they had more mites than the carnelians bees. Most of our hives are Carnies, they handle the cold weather we have better than Italian bees which we started with. There is another strain of bees that is showing a tendency to bite the legs off the mites. They are doing everything to find ways to fight the mites. It is more the virus that comes from the mites then the mites that kills the bees.

We treat the hives 4 times a year with oxalic acid, which is naturally found in the honey, so we don't use chemicals that tend to get into the wax.

 

[addy1]

Fascinating and a little unnerving!

It was a cool post rainy day, so most of the bees were home., we were in a cloud of bees. It would have been better if it had been a sunny warm day so the field bees would have been out in the field.

I only got stung 3 times lol, not bad for as many we were dealing with and they were not happy with us. But his hive did not swarm which is what our goal was.

 

[j.w]

I just finished watching the whole incredibly, exciting video and am totally amazed at what you guys go through in working w/those bees to get them to go where they are supposed to go. So how did it end?
Hope they all got home to their new hives and live happily ever after