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Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: downunder on October 22, 2011, 11:01:38 AM

Title: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: downunder on October 22, 2011, 11:01:38 AM
We use this technique for assessing the number of feral colonies in areas by collecting the drones from the DCA's and then genotyping. I thought it would be a great thing to show my kids.

Enjoy Sky fishing for Drones (bees) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgtDhNeg9_Y#ws)

Mick (dowunder)
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: hardwood on October 22, 2011, 11:31:36 AM
Too kewl!

Scott
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: jmblakeney on October 22, 2011, 11:32:24 AM
Very interesting.  It looked like u may be in a park or something.  Do you just pick random places to send the balloon up, or did you actually see a DCA in the air?  

Thanks for the vid.

James
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: BrentX on October 22, 2011, 11:33:44 AM
What a great project.  The kids were a joy to watch. Thanks for posting.
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: downunder on October 22, 2011, 11:38:07 AM
In this location i knew where the DCA was. You can go on any given good day and throw dark stones in the air and the drones try to mate with them. In areas that are not DCA's it can sometimes take 10-30 minutes to finally get a response. We have discovered canopy height is also important. They seem to be always just above the canopy using the trees as markers. We have found them ranging from 5 - 40m in height. This is an oval and there is no managed colonies kept anywhere near here.

Cheers
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: Larry Bees on October 22, 2011, 12:41:20 PM
Wow! Great video Mick!

I think that I enjoyed it as much as your kids did.

Thanks for posting it!

Larry
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: Riggs on October 22, 2011, 02:03:31 PM
Fascinating, thanks for sharing
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: redhat on October 22, 2011, 07:43:52 PM
Very good video
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: bee-nuts on October 22, 2011, 11:51:19 PM
best drone congregation footage I have seen.
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: Tommyt on October 23, 2011, 09:15:22 PM
Thanks for a very Nice Video
Also a good Dad
IMO

Tommyt
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: downunder on October 23, 2011, 09:27:06 PM
Well you can't leave it just up to schools to do your educating. I try to get them involved where i can with all my research activities with bees and reptiles. They love working with Australian native stingless bees Trigona a and Austroplebia species. We know very little about there mating other than they seem to only mate once, with one male (confirmed by genotyping), however they form drone lek's outside a hive. They randomly fly for up to a week in the afternoon in a big cloud. We have genotyped these Lek's and they are drones from many colonies. It's like they can sense a virgin will be flying soon and wait in ambush.

Very interesting stuff.

Cheers Mick
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: cklspencer on November 03, 2011, 11:31:57 AM
downunder, What is the stuff you are using to bring in the drones and where do you get it? I would like to find some of the DCA near my mating yards.
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: Intheswamp on November 03, 2011, 12:37:47 PM
Now just how cool is that!!!!   :-D
Title: Re: Sky Fishing for Drones - Research Technique
Post by: VolunteerK9 on November 03, 2011, 03:17:39 PM
Cool video man. I have never seen anything like that before.
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