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06-27-2020, 09:08 AM | #46 |
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Damned bees absconded then came back.Gone again!
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06-29-2020, 03:06 PM | #47 |
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Is it possible that bees absconded, than new swarm settled in and absconded?
Hive to hot at certain times of the season? I never kept bees in the subtropics, but my understanding is that since the bees do not need to store for long winters, they tend to swarm and abscond more often. My suggestion is change the hive exposure to the sun, and make sure a good water source is near by. Plus regular inspections to catch problems early BTW, if shorts, light shirt, and a vail are not sufficient, it might be time to requeen. Or at least slow down. Something is setting them off. Last edited by POL; 06-29-2020 at 03:17 PM. |
11-09-2020, 11:27 PM | #48 |
My spawn kills on....
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Location: Huntington Beach, Ca
Age: 54
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Keep an eye on that, the temperament of the colony, and the physical size of the bees....
While I don't have many problems with Africanized bees, I have taken out two hives recently that were man-eaters. I took between 30-60 stings in a matter of minutes on each of them. enough stings from the one hive that I could TASTE the poison in my saliva, and my poop stunk ungodly the next day and a half. The African bees have the tendency to split quickly, abscond very frequently, as POL pointed out. Their territory was the savannas, and they would get boom and bust nectar flows, so they evolved to abandon hives fast, and rebuild quickly. They SAY the Africans are physically smaller, I can't say for sure. We have an area here that has super docile, very small bees. I think a commercial guy is using them somewhere around, and the theory was the smaller bees are more able to deal with the Varroa mites, and the smaller larvae are much less desirable and it may help keep infestations down. Also, they are said to be more hygienic. So I am not sold on small bees being the violent ones, not from my experience here in SoCal. But it's worth keeping it in your thoughts.
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11-09-2020, 11:38 PM | #49 | |
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Quote:
This year was pretty good, I do a lot of cutouts, a few swarm captures, and I did split my own hives pretty well. Went as high as 22 hives, back down now with some weather losses, and a couple failed queens, I have 16 strong ones going into winter. Learned a lot about feeding, watching them for dearth in one of the yards I keep them. The fire in Alpine, Ca San Diego was only a mile away, and the localized super-heat dried out the sumac and buckwheat so badly, it was astounding. Like 55 days over 90 with low humidity, then topped by a local heat factor of 110+ for almost two weeks from the fire, it made super heat flowing down the canyons. Pulled 19 gallons of honey; not a bad season!!!!
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11-12-2020, 03:33 PM | #50 | |
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Quote:
I had no issues checking the hive in shorts,flip flops and a tank top and no veil until it was time to harvest the honey.Then I taped my pants and sleeves shut. I recently renovated the house and found a huge hornet nest.They may have irritated the bees?
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11-17-2020, 01:08 AM | #51 | |
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Re: General bee keeping advice
Quote:
The bees won't mind you much, and the hornets will make them a bit testy, because they may try to sneak into an active hive. If the bees run low of food, they may abscond. I'm learning, that when you strip honey...... no matter WHAT, after you pull honey off, feed them a 1/1 sugar ratio ASAP and they will go right back to work. If you don't, they see the apocalypse and may very well abscond. When they have a building spree going on, they will be meaner. When they are low on resources, they won't fight back nearly as much; they know better than to waste a lot of precious energy unless totally necessary. If they turn mean as hell, likely they requeened, and the new queen mated with some aggressive drones, and the die is cast, that may be their new nature. You can try this: Kill the queen off, and install a new docile queen after 36/48hrs, but not much more. They will take to the new queen, and in 4,5 weeks, the nasty genetics will fall off.
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Safety is but an illusion; Every grain of sand was once a mountain. Every speck of dust..... was once a man. Nothing can stop this, in time. So use the time you have well..... you won't get it back. |
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