Bees

Are bees a pest or a wildlife? I was wondering and thought maybe Al would know. Not about them being a pest or a wildlife. I know that. They are a pest when they bother you and a wildlife when they pollinate your trees and plant. What I was wondering, is when bees come out of hibernation. Is it when it warms up enough for flowers or can they come out before? What do they eat if there are no flowers? It was about 60 degrees on Wednesday and there was one persistant bee buzzing our heads while we were trying to drink a coke outside. We had to come inside to finish it. It was diet coke so it wouldn't have done the bee much good. We didn't swat it. It was a good bee. I just wondered why he wasn't hibernating. Of course, when the apricot trees bloomed in February last year there were bees buzzing all over them. It must be more about temperature than spring. Dooley

 

They are very important little creatures, I find the worker bees fascinating.

May be of interest

 

Bees are not pest. Fact is most bees won't bother people normally.They only sting when they think they are going to be hurt or the honey robbed. Yellow Jackets are WASP and like coke no matter what flavor. Yellow Jackets are the terroist of the insect world and give Bees a bad rap.
Bees do not hibernate. They cluster and stay in their hive eatting honey and shivering their wings to build heat for the hive of about 94F in the cluster center. If the Day temp gets in the mid 40's and the sun is shining they will fly out and do their dudy. They cam hold it an amazing amount of time.
Also in the winter there are no HE's In the hive since they are useless with the soul reason for them being to mate virgin queens spring and summer only.Even in our hives they are wild, can't be trained like a dog. Guess you could say they are much like a cat in some respects.

Our back yard hives Dec 12th. 05


Our front yard hives Dec 12th. 05 the dog wood shrubs and the woods behind them make the wind break for these. These are also an expermint as to which breed is better for our winters. Itialians or Carnolions the latter come from the mountians of Eruope



Al

 

Thank you! I learned something. I thought bees hibernated. If it's not cold and there are early flowers they collect pollen, right. Do they eat the honey during winter? We had a friend who replaced part of the honey with sugar or some kind of sugar mixture in the fall. Do beekeepers generally replace the honey they take with something else? Dooley

 

:?: I got to thinking last night I should have placed a Post script of something in there since some one here lives out west. :cry: The south west does have the African Hybred Bees and they are easly provoked in to stinging. they are very defencive of their hive area out to the 100 yard mark and will attack because of noise like a lawn mower :cry: .

If it isn't cold (above 50F) the bees will fly out of the hive and do their duty. They will also look for Pollen and nectar. They also collect sap from some trees and make what is knowen as proplis, we just call it bee glue. Some breeds Like our carnolions make a lot of it and seal any cracks in the hive and glue down the frames too. It is another saleable hive product.

Yes they eat honey stored in the brood chambers in the winter. Here in Michigan the most common brood chamber is two deep hive bodies 9 5/8 inches deep x 19 7/8 x16 1/4. Some of the even older bee keepers and many woman beekeepers use what is knowen as mediums 6 5/8 deep x 19 7/8 x16 1/4 they use 3 of them instead of the heavier 2 deeps.
We feed syrup in a 2 to 1 ratio made with sugar in the fall after we remove the honey supers to insure the girls have enough food for the winter. we also put meds in the syrup to keep them from getting some mites that hamper their breathing.
In the early spring we feed a 1:1 ratio of syrup to insure they have enough food to make it till the first blooms. If we plan on dividing the colonies to make two out of one we will also give them a pollen substatute to induce brood rearing sooner.

Most bee keepers in the US leave enough honey and feed just as an insurance thing. Other countrys such as Finland with higher honey prices take all the honey and feed back cheap sugar.
The whole sale price of honey last fall in the US was 50 cents a pound. In Finland it was near $3.00 a pound.
A quart jar of honey weighs 3 pounds.
We are one of the few countrys that eat more cane and beet sugar than honey even though honey is better for us.

Early pollen being gathered from our Weeping Pussy Willow Tree.





Al

 

Now you did it got me talking about my girls.

A frame with bees and brood in the spring.


A gallon pickle jar feeder with 1:1 syrup. Also the deep body to surround the jar and hold the top cover.


one of our Carnolion queens on the far left in the middle, she is longer.


Cage with a new queen to start a new colony. There is a soft candy in the neck that the worker bees eat out to release the queen. You want a slow release (5 days) so the workers except her phermones and as mother.


We slip the cage between a couple of frames then squeeze them together to hold the cage in place.


Al

 

The pickle jar has a bunch of [12]1/16th inch holes drilled in it. It drips out the syrup very slowly because of the vacum in the jar. Remember air has to fill the void when the syrup is released.

If I were to just dump a new queen in a queen less colony she would be killed by the workers in most cases because they would have already tried or started to make a queen cell or two to make a new queen.

A swarm cell, how the colony gets a new queen to divide the colony on their own. Natural reproduction building a new colony really.




These types of queens are not normally as good as ones raised in ideal conditions.

Al

 

This is a swarm I captured May 20th 2005. They often land on some thing like tree branches and cluster up untill the scout bees return with the location of a new home. In this case they landed on my corn picker elevator. A new home could be many places but mostly in hollow trees, I have a colony in a hickory nut tree in the back of the property. They now are in the gray medium hives at the far right in one of our out yards. We give the people who own the land some honey for letting us keep bees there. They were afraid of the bees at first and kept their distance. They have seen Kare and I working them woth nothing but a veil and blue jeans they now go watch the bees come and go. Of course they still stay away from the flight path as I instructed them.





Of course they are not this brave yet. Neither is Kare yet. Kare is getting a bit better but still protects her face.





Al

 

This is a swarm that couldn't find a sutiable home so built in the apple tree in a ladies back yard. They had been there for a long time from the size of the combs. The lady didn't know about them till late Sept. She sent an E Mail to the fellow who got me keeping bees and he gave her my phone number since I was closer to her. Kare removed them in two trips.











Al

 

I use a soft brissle brush sold as bee brushes to sweep the girls in a pail with a lid I've rigged up with a short section of rope to have the lid handy. In the first picture I alread got the big cluster.



in this case we backed my friends pickup under the branch then set a hive on a work tabe atop it. then we cut the branch so the bees fell in the hive body. Once the queen is in the hive the rest stay in and those that didn't land in the hive will go in to be with her.





I love to catch swarms. It is a challange to figure out just how to get the job done.
I have even helped catch a swarm by internet as far away as California. By the way that swarm is hived in a comunity garden in the shadows of Dodgers staduim in LA.

Al

 

Thanks, Al. There are africian bees in Arizona. I know Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe have them. I haven't heard of any closer to us. I guess altitude wouldn't have anything to do with it. They may be here and nobody has disturbed them. How do people remove those bees? Where do they take them? Dooley

 

If your high enough for it to freeze then the AHB won't live thru the winters YET.
If your wanting to get rid of AHB call the pros as they have the safty gear and equipment. The AHB's have been knowen to attack people and sting them to death.
If your not sure what you have call a bee keeper
Search under your states name with bee keepers
Such as Michiganbeekeepers.

Al

 

Give this link a try. It is a web site I've tried to do about our honey bees. Ads are a bother though.

http://oldgrumpy.fanspace.com

Al