Bees

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alisonb

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Anybody worked with bees before?A first for me today-had to put on 'supers' on 2 hives,nerve racking to say the least!! I wonder what the bees are going to do tomorrow? :shock:
 
Well it drizzled right through the night and is still drizzling,nothing like a bit of rain to calm the 'African wild bee'-hopefully!
 
So you've got the African honey bees and not the European? How's that working out for you. All reports say they are vicious.......
 
Ryder":1gup6k3s said:
Stay very calm. They react to your vibrations.
:shock: :shock: I'm going to try and remember that next time,I think you are right.
Grannysoo-They are very vicious,you sometimes don't even have to disturb them and they bombard you.They send out 4 times the amount of workers than the european bees and will follow you great distances.It is not unheard of a swarm of bees stinging humans/animals to death.
I decided to get 2 hives as I have plenty blue gum trees on the property-so it is nothing commercial.
Now that the supers are on i will have to wait appr. 6 months before i can harvest,better start reading up.
Here is this afternoons sunset,notice some of the bluegums in the distance,they get full of flowers.
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Alison, Rockridge works with bees all the time. They have quite a successful honey farm. If you have any questions just PM her, I am sure she would love to help..

That is a beautiful pic of the sky.
 
I used to have some bees till my bull decided to knock over 3 hives eat him some honey ,got stong in throut, could't swallow,took to vet,swelled throut,high fever,vet did'nt have a clue what was wrong with bull so kept him when I got home I found the hives all wrecked called my vet and that solved the mystery!! Vet did not know if he was going to be able to save him or not but it turned out he lived through the ordeal but put me out of the bee business but that was better than a dead bull :cboy:
anyone ever heard of this before?
 
There have been bees flying around the house and outbuildings the whole morning.Went and checked on the 2 hives and they are doing just fine.Then i discovered this swarm in a tree just outside of the house.I can only presume that the rain (85mm)this past week has disturbed them.I wish they would fly away! :shock:
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Africanized bees are brutal. In the lower states they requeen their hives 2x a year just so they do not get any africanized bee genetics in them. And if they are queen breeders, they are required to get testing done to ensure they are not selling any with africanized genetics
If you plan to work with these bees, i would requeen them with a european (sp) queen.
When people do work with them, they wear two suits and a veil and double gloves since they can be vicious.

That there swarm, if you want it, will be easy to catch. Set a box under it with some frames in the box. You will need to have a frame of food and a frame of eggs and larva taken from one of the other hives...make sure no bees or queen on that frame. Give a good shake to get the bees off. Do not want to go starting a small war.
Then, If you can slightly bend the tree over the box and give it a good wack to dislodge the bees. Or in my husband's case, used a chain saw to cut the tree down....boy could i tell you a story on that one. lol.
This picture upon second glance looks high up. Might be hard to do.
When you've knocked the bees in the box, watch what they do. If they all go back up to the tree, the queen did not get into the box. However if the queen ended up in the box, the bees that fell outside the box will march in like in Noah's Ark. An amazing sight to behold.
You need the frame of feed and eggs to keep the hive there so they will not abscond. Add the eggs in after you get the bees in the box.
This might take a few attempts. Now if this is where the swarm just landed chances are the scout bees have either found a new home for this hive or will soon do. So if you want these bees you need to get to it.
With these africanized bees, keep you smoker handy, you are going to need it
For alot more info on bees, check out Beesource Forums. Alot of good advice there

Just so you all know, we keep bees in our pasture. All our fences have 6000v to keep the bears out

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http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh16 ... 6_1677.jpg
 
this swarm might have come from one of your hives. It will contain the original queen from the hive. If there is inclement weather for a more that several days, the bees get bored and make swarm cells, in laymans terms. In truth, when all the bees are in the hive for extended periods they get that sense of "too many bees", make swarm cells and in three weeks, when they hatch, you are chasing swarms like calving cows. Especially when they leave with half of the hive.
You need to watch for after swarms. Since bees rarely make only one queen cell, but rather 2-12 cells, you might see grapefruit sized swarms for the next few days. If you have the ability and are not afraid of these bees, I would check into them and cut down all the swarm cells.
A queen from a swarm cell, has the genetic disposition to swarm, and will do so at the drop of a hat. It would be best to requeen her with a good queen eventually

Cells placed on different parts of the frames have different meanings
- bottom and very top of frames indicate swarming
-center of the frame indicates the original queen is soon to fail or they are unhappy with the queen and they re requeening themselves, known as supercedure
-multilpe cells on the center of the frame, hanging like grapes indicate emergency supercedure, the queen failed or was killed and the bees realize something is terribly wrong and well, go over board.

If this swarm came from your hives, your honey production will go down drastically cause now they are in the mode of after swarming and waiting for the virgin that is left to get mated, and lay eggs. Once this happens, they will start to rebuild the hive. From the time a queen hatches to the time she starts to lay eggs can be any where from 2-3 weeks. You also need good fly days for the queen to mate. If the weather is poor, she will not leave the hive to mate, and will be a dud.
If you have any questions, I will be happy to help, but you must realize that because we live in different continents, we will be very different in our methods. You really need a mentor, a person who works in your country, who knows what you need to do and help and guide you. Africa has a lot of honey producers both commercial and hobbists. Find one who is like minded in disease and pest management, who has many years of experience. It will be well worth the effort. Beekeeping is a rewarding business.
 
More info

In a supercedure, a virgin queen when hatched, will go around and bite each queen cell killing the queen and signalling the hive to tear them down. As queens emerge, they pip. Make noise. The virgins of other queen cells close to hatching will respond and thus the virgin will hunt them out and kill them. If a virgin hatches and the old queen is still in the hive alive, they will fight to the death. Since a virgin is younger, smaller, and stronger, they will almost always win.

In a swarming instance, the queen set to emerge will start to pip. The old queen will then leave the hive with most of the forager bees in the hive. Swarming time is usually the warmest part of the day. If the queen can not fly, she will dump her eggs to fly. The virgin then emerges and takes over the hive. If there are more than one cell, the process will start again, and more foragers will leave the hive with the virgin. The last virgin to hatch will take over the hive and start the rebuilding process with the nurse bees. Since nurse bees do not fly, or have not taken their orientation flight, the hive will be vulnerable to robbing bees and preditors such as wasps and hornets. This hive will need to have enough food stores on hand to rebuild, and possibly a reduced entrance to protect. It takes a worker be 23+ days from emerging from its cell, to become a forager bee. Theworkers work up to being foragers. They start as nurse bees, looking after the brood, feeding them, work up to becoming the guard bees, then the scouts and then the foragers.
Queen 16 days to emerge+ 14-21 days to see signs of eggs
worker 21 days to emerge + 23+ to become foragers
Drone (males) 24 days to emerge
A bee's life 101 lol
 
hillsdown":3dg05q6a said:
Alison, Rockridge works with bees all the time. They have quite a successful honey farm. If you have any questions just PM her, I am sure she would love to help..

That is a beautiful pic of the sky.
Thanx HD :D
RR-Wow-a world of infomation 4 this novice.I have placed a 'box' with wax frames under the tree in hopes that they will move in-no such luck yet! Have taken your advice and have a beekeeper coming out at midday,he will bring a hive and his skills along with him.
Went onto your link-that is a pretty impressive lot of hives you have there.I didn't realise one could stack them quite so high?
Thanx 4 your advice,will let you know how things go.
 
I am glad i could help, glad you like the picture.
The two bottom boxes are the brood chambers. Then there is a queen excluder that separates the honey supers from the brood supers. Realllly dislike it when the queen moves up into a honey super and lays eggs. Then the bees never want to leave, and it takes way longer to pull honey. Our honey season is aboout July 1- August 31. So for the rest of they year, they are only two boxes. This year the crazy fall had the honey flow on until the 30th of September. Bad news since September is our month to treat. When October hit, it got cold and now the treatments might not work, and they have decided not to take in their feed. We really need about a week of temps in the teens to get it done. Treatments that do not work can mean higher losses in the spring...
One good thing you have going for you with these africanized bees, even though they are a beggar to work with, is the higher threshold of disease and pest resistance...so i hear.
 
The closest I'd want to get to a hive or swarm is a jar of honey in the supermarket! I'll leave the hazardous jobs to the invincible and immortal bee people...lol.

I know we need bees for agricultural crop pollination... On other hand, just keep them and wasps away from me... ;-)
 
Shoot, Ive got 250 hives out back stacked 4 high right now in the pasture with my bred heifer. She hasnt bothered the boxes yet, but the last 2 steers I had did. They ate up 500.00 worth of honey supers in one day. I guess they eventually had enough of getting stung because they didnt touch another box after that one day. Cows and bees can get along, but sometimes they have to learn the hard way.
 
Wewild":1wsfy4v7 said:
No. Never heard of putting bees in a pasture with cows.
This is not some strange thing bees and cows in same pasture just put a tpost by the hives to tie them to, what was odd was the bull eating the honey I have herd of cows knocking over hives from rubbing on them but not eating the honey ,bees , comb ;but this bull was one of them bulls that was always getting into something so he did'nt stay around to long
 
Well i don't know if i should be happy or sad-the bees 'buzzed' off about an hour before the beekeeper arrived.What an amazing sight and even more amazing is how they all know where they are going. :shock: .But Bob the beekeeper will surely teach me what is what. :???:
 
BRYANT":146giq1r said:
This is not some strange thing bees and cows in same pasture just put a tpost by the hives to tie them to, what was odd was the bull eating the honey I have herd of cows knocking over hives from rubbing on them but not eating the honey ,bees , comb ;but this bull was one of them bulls that was always getting into something so he did'nt stay around to long

I don't know nothing about bees personally just what I see from the road. From the 2 post on here 100% report some kinda problem with it yours included. Eating the honey or knocking over hive would seem to be a stress-or for the bees. Seems it would be easier to put them just outside the fence but as I said I don't know nothing about bees.
 

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