Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: Sputnik on August 05, 2018, 06:22:42 pm

Title: Bees in the air
Post by: Sputnik on August 05, 2018, 06:22:42 pm
Saturday afternoon I'm playing pinball with some good Brothers. I look outside 9 of my hives look like swarms settling. The whole yard is a cloud of bees. I went and checked them
, no fighting or signs of robbing. I have never seen such a flight of new bees. We have had a moist summer with plenty of forage for the girls. Just coming off a 3 day soaking rain. I could not get within 20 feet of a hive without getting my head divebombed. I'm thing like really strong hives, today they are back to normal.
 My captures are a deep with 2 mediums. Same for the splits. The mature hives are a deep with 3 mediums.
 I've gone from 2 hives to 12 this year I hope this is a sign of Healthy and happy bees.
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Van, Arkansas, USA on August 05, 2018, 07:35:48 pm
{I've gone from 2 hives to 12 this year I hope this is a sign of Healthy and happy bees.}

That is a 600% increase, would you like to manage a portfolio for me?  Good job Man, good job.
Blessings
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: BeeMaster2 on August 05, 2018, 08:54:14 pm
Good job Sputnik.
My story is similar to yours. I lost most of my hives last year to misquote spraying. Had 2 hives this spring and now I am now at 22. I just today lost 2 small hives to carpenter ants.
Jim
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Van, Arkansas, USA on August 05, 2018, 09:33:34 pm
Jim, to be sure we are talking about the same thing: a solid black ant one quarter of an inch+- with rather large mandibles {jaw}for its size?  Did the ants swarm the hive with large numbers?


Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: BeeMaster2 on August 05, 2018, 10:43:57 pm
Van,
These ants have large jaws, some are half an inch long. When I open the feeder there are hundreds of them in there. I used to try to kill them with my fingers but so many would get away that now I use a vacuum cleaner to try get them all.
Jim
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Sputnik on August 06, 2018, 06:03:18 am
A friend of mine lost a hive He had captured due an ant invasion. He was feeding them at the time. We heard the swarm while in the bean patch. They settled in a maple tree for about 10 minutes. We were getting our stuff to catch them together. They went somewhere into the woods to the west.
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Sputnik on August 06, 2018, 06:16:30 am
{I've gone from 2 hives to 12 this year I hope this is a sign of Healthy and happy bees.}

That is a 600% increase, would you like to manage a portfolio for me?  Good job Man, good job.
Blessings
If I could do that with my 401k ,I wouldn't be up at 4:30 getting ready to leave for work. Oh well a few more years.
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: ed/La. on August 06, 2018, 08:55:48 am
It could have been a queen or two or more coming back from mating flight. You mentioned 3 days of soaking rain. No mating flight on those days. Next time look for queen on ground. With all the bees flying the confused queen sometimes  lands on the ground and will be covered in small ball of bees. To protect her or to kill her. Yesterday I  caught 2 queens on the ground. I looked because of the bees odd flight brought my attention to it. I was walking around with queen in hand wondering where to put her. The first one was by a queen less hive that had cells due to emerge. Put her in there and hope for the best.  The second was a  queen I put in nuc a few days prior. She was going back from where I  took her. I returned her to where she wanted to be. Did I get it correct?  Should I have left her on the ground to figure it out. Lot of bee predators here. Lizards, dragon flies etc. I will know in a week or so when I  look.
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Sputnik on August 06, 2018, 07:18:10 pm
I did not think of the possibility of a new Queen. Gaining knowledge  was the reason I signed up on this site. Thanks Ed, just hate I didn't find the Queen cell in time to list it on Craigslist for $50.
 The bees are calm this evening. We had a bit of a shower that brought the temp down to 79. I plan on going thru the hives Friday, I will see what is going on there.
                  Thank you. Sputnik
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: Sputnik on August 11, 2018, 08:15:54 am
When I got home yesterday evening I went to check my hives. The one at the center of the bee cloud has the landing board covered in pollen. Looks like they were robbed out. I will open the hive after my coffee and see what is still alive in there.
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: sc-bee on August 11, 2018, 03:36:39 pm
Van,
These ants have large jaws, some are half an inch long. When I open the feeder there are hundreds of them in there. I used to try to kill them with my fingers but so many would get away that now I use a vacuum cleaner to try get them all.
Jim

How many splits vs swarms/captures Jim?
Title: Re: Bees in the air
Post by: BeeMaster2 on August 11, 2018, 07:25:29 pm
SC,
I had a total of 5 splits from my hives, all successful, 2 splits from Bobsims, 6 swarms and the rest were cutouts and Trapouts.
Jim