Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE => Topic started by: doak on June 28, 2009, 07:45:54 pm

Title: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: doak on June 28, 2009, 07:45:54 pm

Those of you who have electric fences and Humming Birds.
Paint your insulators some color un wanting to humming bird's.
Found a skeleton with it's feet still curled around the wire.
My insulators are true yellow, I guess the nail in the center represented the nectar hole.
with it sitting on the wire that was all it took and my fence charger is one of the mildest
I have ever witnessed :'(doak

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: Bee Happy on June 28, 2009, 10:58:49 pm

wow, that's sad. I'm pretty fond of hummingbirds.
I think they make black insulators (for people just setting up an electric fence). Good advice anyway.

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: Jerrymac on June 29, 2009, 01:42:22 am

I thought they got the nectar on the wing. Not landing.

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: Cheryl on June 29, 2009, 01:48:33 am

Quote from: Jerrymac on June 29, 2009, 01:42:22 am

I thought they got the nectar on the wing.

They usually do. But sometimes, if a perch is convenient, they will sit. Flowers don't provide perches, but a hummingbird feeder does. I've seen them sit and drink at a feeder.

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: Robo on June 29, 2009, 07:55:08 am

Watch out for those praying mantis around your feeder too.

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,18288.0.html

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: Cheryl on June 29, 2009, 11:56:42 am

Yikes! I've seen plenty a mantis that big, but had no idea they'd eat a bird.

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: doak on July 19, 2009, 06:23:15 pm

They puncture the body and suck it dry. Don't know if they eat the solids or not. doak

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: fermentedhiker on July 19, 2009, 06:59:55 pm

Quote from: doak on July 19, 2009, 06:23:15 pm

They puncture the body and suck it dry. Don't know if they eat the solids or not. doak

Mantids don't suck their food.  They just bite it into pieces and chew them up.

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: doak on August 22, 2009, 11:55:24 pm

Can you tell me how they catch the humming bird and kill it to begin with.
I am sure the bird just sits there and lets the mantis start gnawing.
You watch them when they are feeding from a feeder. They evidently know their enemies,
you can tell by the way they stay away  from yellow jackets and other stingers.
Any thing that has a snout and is big enough can land on a humming bird while in flight and puncture
the bird and start sucking.
Again, my question is, how does the Mantis catch the bird in the first place.
doak

Title: Re: CAUTION/NOTICE
Post by: poka-bee on August 23, 2009, 01:20:48 am

The mantis arms are amazingly strong and have spikes on em so a big one could hold on.  I don't think they let go once they get something. The big mantis probably weigh the same or more than a hummer, birds have very light bones.  I used to hatch out mantis inthe spring then save a few as pets, watching how they eat, grow, shed, then eat grow shed..till they get wings.  The only ones that would make it after fall were the females cause eventually they would mate and we all know what happens then! :evil:
Jody