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Author Topic: Mouse in the House  (Read 2450 times)

Offline Hethen57

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Mouse in the House
« on: March 01, 2010, 01:32:32 pm »
I went out to check my hives last night after a couple of days of nice weather, and there were tons of dead bees out front.  I grabbed a flashlight to look into the hives to make sure the clusters were still intact, and on my fourth hive, instead of seeing the bottom of the cluster, I saw two eyes peering back at me  :shock:.....there was a mouse in the house!  I pulled the reducer to try to sweep it out with a stick, but it must have chewed a passage up into the frames.  So, I grabbed a mouse trap from the barn and baited it with some peanut butter, set it on the porch and waited.  Within 30 minutes, I had my mouse....and learned my lesson....keep those entrances tight, even during nice Spring weather.

My questions is:  with the weather at 45-55 degrees F, is it ok to open it up and assess the damage, and maybe move around some honey frames, or am I better off leaving them till spring?
-Mike

Offline poka-bee

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Re: Mouse in the House
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2010, 04:17:35 pm »
It's been nice enough here in the Seattle area so if it's over 50, no rain or wind go for it.  Might find more mice tho!  The girls should be out foraging for pollen with temps like this!

Jody
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Offline Hethen57

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Re: Mouse in the House
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2010, 01:18:43 am »
I opened them up today and everything looked great...I must have caught the mouse early, because there wasn't even any mouse droppings on my varroa tray.

By the way, they were pulling in so much pollen today, I could not believe it!  I'm not sure where they are getting the pollen, I don't see any leaves or anything blooming, but every bee had full saddle bags of beige colored pollen and they were really active.
-Mike

Offline Eshu

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Re: Mouse in the House
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2010, 01:14:14 pm »
A lot of trees bloom before they leaf out.  And quite a few have beige or grey pollen. It could be some sort of elm, oak, or maple, I don't know your area well enough to guess.

Glad the mouse don't cause mcu damage.

 

anything