I lost 6 of 50 to flood and flip from storm surge.....did all i could do to tie the stands down and the hives to the stands but a canal overflowed and then flowed like a river through one of my yards and washed out under the pads and then the water flipped the stands. was able to salvage one queen of the 6 that flipped. Then had two where large limbs fell on the hives and literally cracked the telescoping top and split the sheet aluminum so the water poured in and down the center of the hive....lost one of those to an abscond but the other put up with the surgery and stayed.
Then during cleanup post storm it was like swarm season all over again and my phone was ringing off the hook.....missed a few but over 3 weeks i helped remove/capture 12 swarms from displaced hives out of which I got 8 viable queens....so I ended up +2 queens for the experience ;-)
Things are settling down and actually have some stuff blooming.... Pepper is blooming and looks like it will be a slow burn since its blooming on what wasn't destroyed and rebudding on areas where it was....also stuff that isn't supposed to bloom till spring is budding out in leaves and blossoms so its going to be a weird fall flow down here and will just have to roll with it and see if I get anything to harvest in November.
Every day is a learning experience :-)
Wow! I hate the trauma for your bees, but it sounds like you fared much better than I would have expected.
There you are keylargo. I was wondering how you were going to fair. So I take it you didn't evacuate?
Glad you fared well in the bees how are you and your home doing.
Jeff,
Congratulations on coming out ahead.
I hope you didn't actually stay put during the storm.
I have spent a couple months in Key West.
With a storm surge in excess of 10 feet and the highest land mass at about the same height, I would never stay.
Jim
I stayed....the storm surge they are reporting is flat out wrong....no where got more than 6 feet actual water....it was the wave action driving the water which made for an "apparent" storm surge of 10 feet and that was only right on the ocean....i love how they are making up new terms to support the doom and gloom figures they are reporting. Sort of like windchill #s. No one talked about that # 30 years ago but since it allows them to use extreme numbers for shock value they are turning to it more and more.
Yes Jim i stayed....i live in an x flood zone and right at the center of the island at 13' above sea level and half a mile from the ocean....it was wind and rain and a lot of prep and clean up afterwards. If I had evacuated i would have probably lost at least 2 more hives since i would have been away for at least an additional 4 days before they let people back in.
House is fine and bees are recovering.....was odd...you know how drones are booted in the winter because the hives cant feed them? It almost felt like the older foragers suicided since they knew there wasn't goign to be any flowers to collect from for ~2 weeks....population on all hives even those that were in protected areas was reduced by ~ 30% post storm...if it had been select hives based on location or exposure I could draw a pattern but was all hives across the board.
Jeff,
After the storm, my bees were searching everywhere, for nectar. They were in my neighbors garage checking the recycle bins. This went on for about a week. This is something that they rarely ever do.
Glad you fared so well, Jeff. My oldest brother was stationed at a satellite station west of Pensacola NAS when Camille hit in '69. He happened to be on duty station during the worst of it, and because of his high security job, was not allowed to evacuate to shelter. Fortunately, he was on the second story. Building was built of block, so it survived, though flooded. All the aerial hardware was destroyed. It scared the devil out of him and he turned down a lucrative job with NASA for that reason.
Glad you and the bees both made it.
Quote from: KeyLargoBees on October 11, 2017, 09:58:23 AM
It almost felt like the older foragers suicided since they knew there wasn't goign to be any flowers to collect from for ~2 weeks....population on all hives even those that were in protected areas was reduced by ~ 30% post storm...if it had been select hives based on location or exposure I could draw a pattern but was all hives across the board.
I truly believe bees do this. I had a hive that was small and light on stores one year. I think they made it through winter because they got rid of the old bees. They consumed almost no honey through the winter. The made it to spring where I could feed them cappings. And then they took off like a rocket.