What Should I Do?

Maggiesdad · July 21, 2015, 11:28:11 PM

Quote from: biggraham610 on July 21, 2015, 11:14:17 PM
There really was only One perfect person. Good Luck Bee girl. G

an' He hung out with a dude that ate wild locusts and HONEY! I'll take the honey and you can have the wild locusts there, brother... Hang in there, MT Bee Girl!

divemaster1963 · July 22, 2015, 12:11:31 AM

Quote from: Maggiesdad on July 21, 2015, 11:28:11 PM
Quote from: biggraham610 on July 21, 2015, 11:14:17 PM
There really was only One perfect person. Good Luck Bee girl. G

an' He hung out with a dude that ate wild locusts and HONEY! I'll take the honey and you can have the wild locusts there, brother... Hang in there, MT Bee Girl!

I have tried chocolate cover locust. Tasted like crunch bars except for the legs could not tell the difference .

John

cao · July 22, 2015, 12:13:53 AM

Quote from: MT Bee Girl on July 21, 2015, 10:53:39 PM
so I decided just to ignore his mean comments.
I'm learning every day and reading everything I can. What he thinks has no effect on me. Thank you for acting so swiftly though and not tolerating such put downs. It makes me feel more comfortable knowing that I can get support here rather than being chastised for learning.

I'm glad you realize that the vast majority of the people who post here are doing it to help a fellow beekeeper. I just started posting recently because I finally feel that I can give a little useful knowledge after having bees for 3 years and reading about them for a couple of years before that. Much of my knowledge has come from mistakes(mine and others) and learning from them. Don't feel too bad if you make mistakes. Hopefully the bees will teach you what they want. I don't know of any beekeeper that knows everything about bees. We all learn everyday. Hopefully you will keep us posted on your progress so we can all learn some more.

ed/La. · July 22, 2015, 01:52:27 AM

Trap outs are time consuming with spotty success. Only do if close to home because several trips. I fill entrance cracks with steel wool and use a plastic funnel and duct tape. When the bees are thick I vacuum and add to a hive that needs bees. spray caught bees and hive with sugar water/lemon grass oil to cover different bee scent Worked for me. Never caught the queen on trap out. Cutout have better success rate. Swarm season is over on gulf coast. If swarm season is ongoing there put a few swarm traps out. Fun easy way to catch bees. I started with 2 hives this spring I have 34 now. Swarm traps cut outs and splits. I lost a lot o bees by not splitting soon enough and they swarmed. I wanted strong hives. I am learning. Good luck, have fun, bee safe

beemaster · July 22, 2015, 04:11:48 PM

MT Bee Girl

Our tolerance of how members treat each other is long standing and it is hard to follow every post for the mods - so the report to moderator link is in every post so that members can be the watch dogs as well.

People come here for many reasons, sharing and learning beekeeping knowledge is a place people can take those who are new under their wings and guide them to understanding - NOT a place to be chastised, no matter what the reason. You'll continue to get the info you need here and not have to deal with rude and totally prohibited replies. Best wishes.

Beemaster

mtnb · July 22, 2015, 05:45:35 PM

Thank you beemaster and everyone! I really wish you were near me too divemaster. I would love some one on one time with another beekeeper. I rally appreciate all of you! Even challenger. You need people in your life to show you how not to behave too.

I really liked your steel wool idea ed, so that's what I did today. I figured that was more economical. I filled all the cracks with it and also taped everything shut really well with my husbands's expensive thick real duct tape. lol (he said I could)

They definitely weren't going back in when I was done. I saw a couple slip out through the funnel and while I was attaching the box to the ladder, I noticed one worker bee with pollen go into my box.

I definitely feel alot more confident with this set-up and am happy with the amount of bees I saw. Hopefully....

...from 2 to 34, ed? Wow!!! Good for you! ...thanks again everyone!

http://s284.photobucket.com/user/MTBeeGirl/library/Trap%20Out/Trap%20Out%20Fix?sort=3&page=1

iddee · July 22, 2015, 08:36:10 PM

One thing you missed on my posts. The entrance to the trap box should be as close to the BASE of the funnel as possible, not the TIP of the funnel. The tip can be anywhere.

Rurification · July 23, 2015, 03:03:36 PM

Very interesting thread - for many reasons.

Bee Girl - I'm excited to see more women beeks trying new things. I did a swarm and a cut out soon after I started and was happy for the experience, even though I made a lot of mistakes. Cut outs are not my idea of a fun time, but I can do one now. This year I'm trying mating nucs at the advice of some of the members here. Fingers crossed it works. I hope you keep us posted on how the trap out works. It's so interesting to see the different ways to approach the set up, etc.

Moderators - thanks for the clarification that insulting posts should indeed be reported. I feel really bad when I make beek mistakes and I come here for advice and help [and sometimes sympathy]. It's nice to know that friendly and helpful behavior is the expectation here.

chux · July 23, 2015, 06:03:39 PM

I second the notion of swarm traps. During swarming season, that is an excellent and fun way to increase your number of hives. lots of info on it on this and other sites. Basically, talk to a beek to find out when your swarm season begins and ends. Just before it begins, put out a trap. I use an old deep that needs a little patchup work. More experienced beeks will often give you such equipment. Put a plywood top and bottom on the box. Drill an entrance hole. Put some frames it it. Put a little chunk of old comb, or an old dark frame of comb. Add a little lemon grass oil. Hang it in a tree over head high. And wait. It is so fun to go by every week or so and check your traps. And when you see those bees coming in and out as you walk up...Wow, that's fun.

mtnb · July 23, 2015, 09:31:40 PM

Sorry. I wanted to post sooner but I'm having trouble with my wifi and had to wait for hubby.

I went to fix the exit this morning and all the bees were gone. There were about 3-5 hanging around the outside, a handful in the funnel trying to get out, and 2 bees on the wood near the entrance clinging on for dear life with their butts up in the air. Everybody else is gone. We had a big storm come through last night and I was worried what they would do. Well, they left. I bet the Queen's still in there with a few attendants, right? What do I do now with her and the rest? How can I get her out? Not even necessarily to catch her but just so the guy can seal the hole?

Did they leave because of the storm or what happened, you guys think? ...here's what I think, I f*ed around too long to get it right with them being able to get through the funnel at first. Then the storm and the end of the funnel not touching the board...bees doing what they want...maybe if I would have got it right when the weather was still nice I could have gotten them...lesson learned...do it right the first time. What do you guys think happened?

Chux, that sounds awesome and am definitely planning on setting swarm traps next year. Been reading about beelining too which could be fun. Rurification, good for you for doing cut outs! I would attempt that too if someone would show me how first though. Good luck on your nucs!

iddee · July 23, 2015, 09:59:25 PM

I would say you did all you could. If they were there only a few days, they ran out of food, the queen left, and the bees followed. They would have went, storm or no storm. If someone had seen them go, you might could have gotten the whole hive.

Who knows, you may get a call in a day or two when the owner of their new home finds them.

mtnb · July 24, 2015, 02:02:48 PM

Finally got my wifi fixed. Man that was bad timing.

Do you really think so, iddee? I really hope that the queen got away with them all. I'm worried that I created a queenless colony and a small handful of queenright bees that will surely die now. I went and looked this morning and was planning to take my equipment away and let the few stragglers out but the owner was there and he told me that late afternoon yesterday, there were a lot of bees back again. (I've learned though that his "a lot of" is different from mine lol) I decided to leave everything as is because I don't want them to all go back into the crack if it's open again. Right? Wrong? I've read somewhere that bees have a 3 day memory? so I figure I'll go check after the weekend...

I want to say thank you all again for your help, support, and kind words. I really didn't mean for this to turn into someone getting banned. And I also just realized I should have posted this in the honeybee removal section. Sorry about that.

GSF · July 24, 2015, 08:41:43 PM

It's also a learning thing, so it'll be okay.

ed/La. · July 24, 2015, 11:15:41 PM

That is why I like to vacuum them up. At least you get something. I have gotten several pounds to add to hive or start new one.

chux · July 26, 2015, 10:33:19 AM

What you see there now could be foragers who were out in the field when the colony left the other day. Last year I had a good-size swarm move into a nuc swarm trap I set up. I decided to leave them up the tree for a few days to build some comb and start laying. When I came back, they had decided the space was too small, and left. There was a ball of bees in the hive about as big as my fist. They were in the field when the rest left. They came home to an empty house. Had no idea where to go, so stuck around. That is likely what happened with you.

mtnb · July 26, 2015, 11:48:43 AM

Thanks for the info guys. The whole thing seems a bit anti-climatic to me. lol I'm going to learn how to do the vacuuming. It just seems like it would hurt them. lol How much wind/suction can a little bee take? lol I feel bad for those stragglers but c'est la vie I guess.