Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: A sad day for my native bees  (Read 7977 times)

Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #20 on: January 03, 2017, 03:14:33 am »
How do you actually accomplish the transfer of the brood to a new box? I just can't picture how it's done, is it simply that the spiral of comb is picked up and moved? Same goes for the honey pots - and how goes the hive that the honey is robbed from?

So many questions and sounds like your a busy man!

I've done many wild nest transfers some taking over an hour of careful cutting, but in the case of my hives I just need to cut around the walls and pull out some folded wire which holds most the brood and honeypots then I just place it into a new hive then cut out whatever is left in the old hive which is often just some loose brood.

When I need to take out honeypots I look for small clusters as all you need to do is slowly cut the connections with a sharp clean knife and the whole cluster comes off with little to no spills, you can see the small connections attaching the honeypots to the wall in this photo, you can also see the folded wire and some brood which the bees have built between the folds.

I've not been able to check the robbed hive but I'll be seeing them tomorrow when I move in so I'll post an update but I won't be able to look inside for at least two weeks, as the bees need to settle with as little stress possible if they are going to have any chance to recover.
« Last Edit: January 03, 2017, 03:34:45 am by Barlon »

Offline Lone

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1094
  • Gender: Female
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #21 on: January 11, 2017, 12:09:23 pm »
This is terrible, Barlon, my sympathies.  Usually the only looking after stingless hives require is not to be touched.  And to be checked on occasionally.  You could have hung them on a rope from a tree had you known what was going on with the chooks.

I also lost two stingless (T hockingsi) hives in the past week, but under much better circumstances.  Mine have all been splits, and I'd promised one to a friend for pollination after her neighbour threatened my european bees.  Seeing as european hives are worth $450 and a can of flyspray is $4.50, I moved them the day after he complained to the council. I reckon that you can hide stingless bees a lot more easily.  So she collected it this week.  The other was unexpected, a phone call from someone wanting to buy a hive.  I didn't mean to sell one, but the trouble was who it was being given to.  My landlord said that you couldn't find better people, and I know them to play the accordion and uke very well, and I sort of broke and now they have my other strongest hive.

My two remaining are a bit weaker, but had plenty of brood when I inspected.  They are in town where they do much better and where there is a cluster of hives nearby.  I was paranoid yesterday evening though when I couldn't see a bee flying, guarding, or hear them, but old mate rang this morning and said the bees were buzzing in both hives.  It must have been just too late when I saw them.

Thanks, Barlon, for your information and stories about your local little bees over there in the Territory, and I look forward to reading more progress reports (hopefully happier ones).

Lone

Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #22 on: January 12, 2017, 05:47:58 am »
Thank you Lone, it's good to hear from someone who knows a bit about caring for stingless bees, they do fairly well on their own and in my few years of keeping I've not really had any problems till recently which is not the bees fault just a lot of bad luck.

I've been watching the hive that got raided and so far it looks very good lots of bees are foraging now and it looks very lively, I've still not opened it up yet as I'm trying to give the bees as much time as I can to settle but if their activity is anything to go on I'd say the bees are doing much better.


Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2017, 06:01:29 am »
Hi everyone

I checked on my native bee hive that got broken into awhile back and it looks like it's recovering nicely, so I can finally post some good news for everyone.

To make it even better I've taken some photos of the recovering hive to share with everyone, I hope you all enjoy these photos and don't mind too much on how bad I am at taking them.

In these photos you can see the brood and some new honey pots full of fresh honey which means these little guys have been busy little bees.

Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #24 on: January 16, 2017, 06:04:05 am »
Another photo




Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #25 on: January 16, 2017, 06:06:37 am »
Last photo and sorry their not all in one post for some reason when I did my first post only one photo got uploaded even tho I entered in all three.

Offline Lone

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1094
  • Gender: Female
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #26 on: January 31, 2017, 11:52:17 am »
Good recovery Barlon.

By the way, I'm so paranoid about pests that I use half a roll of gaffer tape every time I crack a hive open.

Lone

Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #27 on: February 01, 2017, 06:43:31 am »
Good recovery Barlon.

By the way, I'm so paranoid about pests that I use half a roll of gaffer tape every time I crack a hive open.

Lone

Don't worry Lone I do the same thing, I always keep my hives as protected as possible from pests as one time when opening a hive I found hive fly eggs under the lid which made me paranoid ever since.

Offline Barlon

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 52
  • Gender: Male
Re: A sad day for my native bees
« Reply #28 on: March 10, 2017, 09:36:41 pm »
Sadly got a mixed bag of news on my bees, first lets have some good news.

I recently rescued a nest of Austroplebeia magna which is great since before I only owned Tetragonula mellipes hives so its a good change.

All my hives are active including the one that got broken into and all have very healthy queens, some even recently replaced their queens and I got to watch a few mating flights.

Bad news is my hives need to be moved yet again as their not getting enough floral so some hives are not doing as well being outdone by my larger hives.

I've also been having ant and rat problems on some of my hives the rats keep chewing up the bee entrance forcing them to rebuild it almost everyday and the ants attack my hives so I'm forced to have moats under them which stops most ant attacks but not all.

The worse news being my budding hive connected up to a wall which I've been taking step by step pictures of for the past year came crashing down during a large storm and my hive got smashed after dropping from the upper level of the house it was attached to.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2017, 10:41:32 pm by Barlon »