I get the impression you all think I’m talkin out my arse.. but honestly I’m not, If I have given any misinformation I apologise and assure you it was not my instention, only trying to help, as I’m sure others are by pooing my (probably badly written) statements, I’m pleased that they care enough to stop misinformation, but similarly not quite beliveing it is as yet (guess only experience now I’m a “grown up” and allowed to do what I want, and time will tell on most of these)
The only thing that upsets me is the implicationt hat I am somehow fantisising these thing, I have no gain from taking my time to post on my somwhat unorthadox practices, as a severly dyslexic person it takes me an awful lot of time to write my posts, and check them through for what typos I can spot. The idea that I would bother to do this for anything but to try and assist hurts.
anywhoo to start at the very beginning. Prob is my answers get soo long, but when ever I miss info out it gets misconstrued. Hey ho
Why people perpetuate this business of until the last of the old codgers dies off.... it will continue. I do not know. It is just not true.
Sorry I wasn’t implying that, more that intil she has progeny in the hive, that it isn’t an instant change more gradual and once she has offspring hatching into the hive they should have clamed down by then.. when I commented to my mentor once I thought the new queen had had a marked effect already I was told I was not being objective and that they become more docile because they are down in numbers (even if you haven’t reduced the flyers, being queenless gives them a few days of no laying + new queen will take some time to build up as her tubes will have clogged up a bit not being able to lay while in the cage (even more so if she was bought in and had to be in the post for several days) this removed the bolshiness of the colony, plus I was more likely comparing it to how they had been queenless.
Maybe he was wrong, but I believe him until I have proof otherwise, no disrespect, but I don’t know you and I spent many yrs with him.
I believe what I was taught that the fliers become as docile as they were when the colony was smaller (in this guys case after aggression for two yrs.. still pretty angry) as they do not spend much time around the queens scent, only passing through the hive to deposit what they have collected and then back out again.
However once the brood starts coming through the new queen is effectively accepted and her smell is all pervasive and these old flyers are dying off, the new flyers have been around the queen and though not hers genetically behave more like they are. I always imagined it as like getting stoned in a room full of tokers. The scent form the queen chills out the bees, but popping in and out and sleeping in the room people have smoked it you won’t be as chilled as if you’d sat in there for hours while they were smoking.
Where did you dig this gem up from? How the hell is reducing the entrance going to reduce foraging?
Reducing the entrance reduces the number of bees that can get in and out at any one time. Bees have to wait their turn to get in forming beard on outside and congestion inside, some bees even bees set to work widening the doorway. Sorry perhaps I’m beyond dumbness but I don’t see how this is so laughable. I certainly never questioned it, made sense to me unlike a lot of beek stuff.
If bees go out first thing, one way traffic, less go out per minute. unitl Bees start coming back fully laden, these get preferential treatment over bees coming out as they are loaded with new stores. Bees coming out therefore further slowed down by the bees coming back in. overall less bees are out at any one time, and more are stuck in or stuck queing to get back in. more bees trying to get in at the entrance gives you marginally more time to get there before the guards notice you, the doorway has become like the turnstyles on the underground. When the tubeline is crowded, do they open up more or speed them up.. no they close them down and slow them down. Bess trying to get in while you set up lessens the numbe of unladen ones that can get out to attack, until you suck them away.
Also reducing hive entrance encourages swarming instinct so preps the bees for being dequeened.
The beard of bees on the outside also makes it a lot easier to distinguish flyers outside of hive from non flyers inside. For hovering, you can get a feel of how close you can get before they get sucked out.
I didn’t say it was easy, but the quieter you can be the less of the bees come out before you can suck them up. I have done this several times when hives were near schools, we always took bees to another apiary and introduced them via newspaper.
That's a good boy spread disease give someone else your problems
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3miles ?? people move hundreds of bees hundreds of miles, it goes without saying that if you suspect disease you should never do this. He has a hive in his garden, giving some (in my mind) aggressive bees to someone with an out apiary is not a big risk of disease spread. And it’s their decision if they want to accept or not, could probably inspect his hive if they wanted to be sure. If someone has a failing colony it seems a shame to put perfectly healthy bees down because you’re overpopulated.
However if PH is correct then you may as well keep the bees in a better ventilated container until the new queen is resident and let them beg their way back in. then you haven’t lost many bees at all.
Being a large colony has nothing to do with the bees being defensive. As for knocking back the foragers is rubbish also.[/quote]
In this case maybe not as they have been for two yrs (but I am unsure of the status of the hive size in this time.. I’m almost 100% sure on this one in my eyes colonies which seemed fine for some time reach a critical mass that they are no longer fearful of the colonies survival and become right little f**kers
Knocking back the forragers does not remove defensiveness in the bees that come out to replace them persay, but the reduction in colony size does IMHO, and as it takes a while for some of the nurse bees to take their place, by which time a queen should hopefully have been in place albeit in a cage, during which time there are less overall fliers able to be aggressive.
Less angry bees flying around= less chance of stings to friend/ family and neighbours.
First bit of GOOD advice
The rest as per usual is not quite correct.
Erm thanks I think..
Kill all the drones are you on this bloody planet???????????????/
Maybe I’m totally mistaken and it was just to give me sommet to do but I would sit squishing and needling/decapping forking out drones for hours as a kid., even sucked whole hives into bee vacuum and put excluder over the tube so only the females can walk back out to the hive to dequeen and removed drones in one. But that caused issues with the brood already in the hive so we stopped that practice.
No more i am fuming to have to read such rubbish.
Still please reply but bear in mind i will not be about to read it.
Sorry don’t mean to cause offence as I said before I’m just trying to help from what I remeebr doing, I can’t imagine he was that bad a beek, was full time his only job and he managed to support a family doing it. Maybe things were a lot easier and bees more forgiving pre verooa, but he was still at.
Good luck with your beekeeping you need it.
Thanks for the luck anyway, I’m sure I will, as does everyone to a greater or lesser degree. Seems I may have learned from a crazy old guy, but I loved him and it seemed to work, either that or years and years of it bred some pretty resilient bees.. I guess my bees need the luck more than I do if the way I will threat them is really so bad
Thank you Mo for your comments.
If you’d prefer I left and just got on with it on my own please let me know. I’ll bow out if my random remembrances aren’t wanted here I’m happy to get on with it. But similarly happy to stick around being shouted down, doesn’t bother me and you never know one of his weird contraptions or methods may turn out to be a gem. I find the more I think about it all the more comes back to me. If you ask me to I’ll refrain from posting until I have a few yrs under my belt again, can’t imagine much will change tho, I’m hardly going to tow the “this way is the only right way” line if anything once I get into it myself having done several yrs of learning of a more achedemic nature in the mentime my trial ideas will become more whacky.. tho there will be the benefit of having tried them last week, not relying on ancient memories of bygone bees.. It may be less agro on your part if you’re getting complaints to ask me to leave. I won’t be offended. Plenty else to do with my time. Would however like to be able to stay and read if that’s ok with you. It may help to remove my posting rights tho as I have compulsion to post sometimes.
Watching too much Dr Who.
Erm no.don’t really watch tv, never have, find fiction a waste of time.
[/quote] Have to say that the bit about "sneaking" up to the hive with a bee hoover (being careful not to get too close to the door as you don't want to suck out nurse bees or queen) made my day! What a cracking post! Lol.[/quote]
I know no ones ever going to do what I say but me, but it is a legitimate problem, when your sucking up bees if you get too close to the entrance then some non fliers get pulled out. And theres a risk one may be the queen.
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Sorry Mandabow, but I am in the other camp.
What really made me smile was the idea of sneaking up on them and assassinating the guards. Probably quite a good idea if these guards were not replaced PDQ!
Lol don’t worry about it.. I’m not upset. I know it works, I’ve done it before. I’d feel more guilty not trying to help and just leaving the thread empty (which it was when I started my post) and just as all you guys would if you didn’t jump on my post to “protect” newbies from my seeming insanity. I’m more than used to being the odd one out, I suspect my mentor was too, while most of my contemporaries and friends were dossing around doing drugs I was rushing off to see how this or that colony were doing. I’m pleased for everything I’ve learned even if it turns out to all be wrong ‘cos it’s taught me a lot more than beeping (or killing as maybe)
It isn’t assassinating the guards its moving them on elsewhere, and I know they are replaced pretty quickly but, on the basis of cutting down the number of bees flying, while minimising them all becoming airborne before you have a chance , if you don’t sneak up the guards get alerted a lot easier and by the time you start the hoover there is a cloud of bees trying to sting you through your clothes. You loose far more bees to stinging you can’t catch as many, and once the hoover is started and they all start coming out to see your not in the right position to get them.
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I need these bees off me can some one point to a bee hover please? [/quote]
I wasn’t aware they weren’t commonly used, I know your post is probably in jest but one is very simple to rig up with any hoover, bin, bit of mesh and some dampener like open pore polyeurothane foam or even scrunched up fibres. (pic attached for what it’s worth)
Mandabow....as others have indicated, please don't invent stuff for beekeepers who are genuinely interested in learning from sensible advice.
As previously stated I am not, I am however now more than aware that the practices I tood as commonplace among beeks are somewhat unorthodox/controversial
And for the record what the * does this mean
"Number of colonies:1 virgin queen and couple of combs of brood -does that count as precarious colony?not sure"
Ask and you may learn...Surely you don't believe in parthenogenesis in bees....?
Well basically, I felt it dishonest to say none as I now have bees, however I don’t count it as a colony until HRH has mated and producing females offspring.
So as the space is for number of colonies I thought it best to expain not quite one yet. I should know this weekend whether or not she is laying and probably a bit later whether they are viable offspring.
Of course I don’t belive they are capable of parthenogenesis, however if she survives she is capable of genesis, just won’t be a true colony as they will soon die out only producing males.
I wish people who give advice have experience before they give it!
I believe I have experience, I can’t believe bees have changed that much in 15 yrs, I may miss-rember the odd thing but I still feel like I remember it like it was yesterday. Perhaps my views will change as I get back into it. I’ll certainly consider other things I have read on here, but my basal learning will always be in my memory as right until I prove it’s wrong to myself.
