WILD bee hive!!!

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  • #55
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Good work. I supered my hive directly on top of log instead of cutting them out. I pulled ten medium frame of honey off last night. It will yield about 2.5 gallons
 
Pretty much what he is thinking of doing John. He was also thinking of using the spray (pheromone?) to entice to a hive if all else fails when we get cooler weather.
His main goal is cloning the hive. He is loving how hardy and healthy they are. How well they are surviving our drought and how docile they are. He put his bee suit on for a minute when we got the log down and were working on it before putting it on the truck. When he saw how mild mannered they were, he shed the suit. Pretty evident how Seth can sit right next to the hive with all the workers that got left out buzzing him and no worries.
My elbows have been sore... kinda wish I had got stung a couple :lol:
 
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  • #61
Pheromone is just bait IF they swarm . It won't make them do it. Swarming dis a build up of bees or a failing queen. Usually in spring when honey flow begins. At this point it would be best to leave them alone to build up winter stores. Try to catch the swarm in spring.........however, sometimes there can be a late swarm, like September. Usually those are small.

If you cut them from the log and rubber band comb into hive, you need to feed to build them up to survive winter.
 
Thanks for clarifying that John... He might have meant in spring..
Like I said, he is planning on pretty much leaving them in the log for now. When I mentioned how you did your log with the hive on top, he said he would probably try that as well.
I am really looking forward to hearing about hopefully their success... And a jar of honey of course ;)
We were supposed to hook up yesterday at the job site. He had a ladder he wanted to give us and some honey.
Unfortunately, someone left the water on over night at the house and I have two dry tanks and thought I may have lost a pump. Burned through the last bit of tree and the clean up to go home and address that problem. I'll probably follow up with him after I move some goats this evening.
Small job an hour away with a good price tag awaits and I won't be back until later today.
 
Great info here.

Thankfully the bees left the tree that we're on for the next two days.
They say God Chokes, but doesn't strangle.
 
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  • #65
Bodean said:
Great info here.

Thankfully the bees left the tree that we're on for the next two days.
They say God Chokes, but doesn't strangle.
Click to expand...

Beware.....might be stragglers .
 
I asked them a month ahead of time to extract the bees or however they can to mitigate.
They said they took care of it, I asked two days before, any bees? none they told me.

Got there, bees are swarming out of two holes, we wreck as much as we can, then we cut the bee parts.
Swarms for hours, They called apiarist to move the pieces so we could work. 100 degrees out.

The four of us working, only Tim and I could get near, the other two guys were bitten almost 20 times a piece...
even chased his dog into the cab of the truck howling.
I think I got hit once in the neck.
I don't know why they left us alone. Tim and I.

So we thought we were cool, til all the bees swarmed back into a hole at the top of the 60' stick, with one fat 20" branch left to cut.
It think we may dump the whole stick, either way it's gonna be a gnarly one tomorrow.

Bee bop and tyvek suits...
 
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  • #68
Bummer, you got sand bagged!!!!! They will got back to any part of the hollow section which has brood comb . A bee vacuum would really help at this point. Less bees flying around.

A smoker going will also help to mask the panic pheromone they are creating.
 
CurSedVoyce said:
I am looking forward to doing this again if a situation presents itself. Kind of wild sitting there in a small swarm of bees trying to suppress the instinct to swat at things. Having them on the face netting was a tad weird. But it was not all that bad. And if they make it, the feeling I will have from pulling this off is incredible. Bees are so vital and in such a bad state of late. This hive could add stronger genes to a species that are very much needed.
Click to expand...

Late to the party here, but awesome work done, hats off!
 
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  • #70
Going rob honey from a second hive I setup in a friends garden. Looks like three gallons or so possible from this one. 2.5 from my log hive. Looks like I got Christmas gifts ready.
 
Nice harvest John!
Talked to the apiarist yesterday. Hive is doing great.
He is going to do as you suggested John.
Said he would call if he had any questions.
He said they had settled right in and gotten down to the business of harvesting and being bees. Little wary of strange faces in front of the hive entrance :lol: But all is good and he can get real up close and personal with them. Log is again in an upright position and seemingly no damage from transport.
 
Cool, Stephen.

We ended up dumping the stick. It was gnarly on impact. We bopped them immediately.

Here are pictures of us moving portions of the tree/hive. They looked happy with their honeycomb. I think the nest survived.

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