Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: adamant on October 07, 2011, 10:20:51 pm
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my bee yard is 300 yards from a farm market that does hay rides and birthday party's. yesterday they called and said there was bees all over ..in the trash, by the snack stands and a few kids got stung.. i am 4 month old with keeping bees and the first thing that came to my mind was the feed in the feeders went dry.. i did not get in till after dark and checked the feeders ..some went dry! i called them and they said if i could move them to the other farm.. i said yep.. Friday night i will pack them up and move them.. after dark i screened them at the entrance and broke my ______s lifting them in the bed of the truck.. 10 hives .. got stung 7 times.. should i have smoked them before loading them and UN loading them? it was after dark! how would u have done it? i did notice some are light.. have to address feeding Sunday..
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That stinks that you had to move them.
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i don't move hives without suiting up. there are always stragglers and i end up putting my hand on them and getting stung :-). + if you are not really good at closing them and you bump them around, you get angry bees in your face.
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>should i have smoked them before loading them and UN loading them?
A light puff or two wouldn't have hurt. But if they are closed off it shouldn't matter much. I always suit up even if I have help and they closed up. I have had hives slide off the dolly or fall while carrying them. If you're doing a two man carry and one of you gets stung there is no telling the results...
I always close them off while moving. Usually I have to move them myself, so I load them up before dark a box at a time and leave them there until early (before dawn) and then close them off and haul them to where I'm going and then unload them a box at a time. But if you have the help to do it in one piece I suppose that's a great way to move them.
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>should i have smoked them before loading them and UN loading them?
Usually I have to move them myself, so I load them up before dark a box at a time and leave them there until early (before dawn) and then close them off and haul them to where
the ones that are still out foraging do they find there hive?
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i learned in little league football many many years ago that this is usually the time of year that yellowjackets are all over the garbage cans ( lots of soda cans, etc ). of course you and your bees will get blamed anyway, but i'd bet you most of the "bees" in the garbage were yellowjackets.
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I always seal hives in the dark whether early morning or at night. This way you get all of them. More important to smoke them when removing your screens at the new location. Even the gentlest of hives don't care much for being moved on down the road.
...JP
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...i'd bet you most of the "bees" in the garbage were yellowjackets.
That was my first thought. You may have a "teachable moment" if the offenders persist now that the hives have been removed.
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I tend to assume bees in pop cans are yellowjackets, as they are usually the culprits, but I have seen bees in a real dearth on occasion go after pop, so it's hard to be definitive without seeing them for yourself.
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well we will find out today if the bee pressure subsides at there market. if so i will be moving them each year from sept 1 till Nov 1 because thats there hayride/activity season
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I agree it could have been yellow jackets , I have had several people tell me lately that they had honeybees all over, including some family members, and when I would tell them they were yellowjackets they would say whats the difference, I think sometimes people are unwilling to learn the difference.
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yellow jacket, yellow jackets, yellow jackets. Period! If you don't keep bees, any stinging insect get called a honeybee.
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Tell them to go mess with one. If it stings them more than once its not a bee. :-D
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well we will find out today if the bee pressure subsides at there market. if so i will be moving them each year from sept 1 till Nov 1 because thats there hayride/activity season
I would do that to assure myself a place to keep bees
You may want to look for a trailer to help your moves
If it is big enough you can leave the hives on it till spring
Tommyt
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i wouldn't blame it all on yellow jackets. I was putting gas in my car at 7-ll last week and the big trash can out at the pump where people usually throw away soda cans and unfinished drinks had lots of honey bees coming and going from it.
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Do kids get taught the difference between wasps and bees anymore and what to do with either?
Getting stung by a bee or even a wasp is the usually the mammal's fault. Heck 50 years ago I was told wasps were trouble if you troubled them and give them a wide berth , but bees were just too busy to bothered with stinging people so long as you didnt interfere with their work and if they landed on you it was because they were tired or cold, and if a bee wanted something to eat you let it.
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Funny you mention that Derekm, I was taught the same thing. I was never stung by a honeybee until I started keeping bees and squishing them during inspections. They have been way less aggressive than wasps in my experience.
As a kid, I was always told I wouldn’t get stung by wasps if I didn’t bother them. However that advice proved to be wrong. I got stung countless times by wasps as a kid and I can still remember all the pain! One time I was sitting on a road side guard rail waiting for Dad to finish washing the car at a car wash in Ohio. Probably about 8 years old at the time and minding my own business when I was attacked by a swarm of wasps. I must have gotten 30 stings that day. It was horrible, the things got into my pants legs and crawled into my socks and kept stinging and stinging. I still find wasp stings much more painful than honeybee stings to this day.
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Lived in the country as a child, never got stung by either until a I was 17 when youth hostelling my task was to clear some under growth , unfortunately it had a wasp nest in it and I got stung enough to make me ill for the rest of the day. Bee stings have waited for 40 years and all of them I can really put down to me, "exceeding the speed limit" or "crossing the freeway in the rush hour" or " I told you GO AWAY and you didnt listen did you"
Dont kids know how to kill a wasp ? you have to move slow, because it can move faster than you, and you better be sure you are going to ge it, because its gonner come for you!!!!
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another trick in moving them is to use a rachett strap around the hive.
no slip or opening of the hive that way.
i mounted a truck crane on a trailer to move hives and i think its great.
i can move 250 lb hives by myself without straining.
bailey
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another trick in moving them is to use a rachett strap around the hive.
no slip or opening of the hive that way.
i mounted a truck crane on a trailer to move hives and i think its great.
i can move 250 lb hives by myself without straining.
bailey
bailey--- can u snap a pic of that crane?
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sure can.
its a truck crane that has a a rotating base so you can reach out of he trailer then rotate the lifted hive into the trailer.
pic below. hope it helps.
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9776/cranea.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/cranea.jpg/)
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I've been seeing honeybees acting desperately lately, including climbing on me in my own yard (100s of yards from their hives), butting up against our window screens, etc.
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you can get those type of cranes from harbor frieght. I had one mounted in the bed of my truck to pick up my inflatable boat so i didn't have to take the motor off
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sure can.
its a truck crane that has a a rotating base so you can reach out of he trailer then rotate the lifted hive into the trailer.
pic below. hope it helps.
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/9776/cranea.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/3/cranea.jpg/)
thank you..
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I say prob yellow jackets, those suckers are nasty when you pass by a garbage can.
I put 6 hives on a small trailer offset so I can get behind them to work on them. All have a ratchet strap on them to keep from moving or loosing anything like the tele cover. They are only about 24 inches off the ground with bottom ent. Great thing is I just have to cover the entry with screen and hook up to the trailer with the pick up to move them. I do smoke them a little, it works very well for 99.9% of the guards but that’s why they call them guards, and some are very good at their jobs...ouch.
Put a small branch in front of the entry when you get to the new location so they reorient.