Will bees forage the two points ?

[grahambee]

Just set up a new apairy in a mod (royal navy) research facility and was wondering whether bees would forage across the water to what is porchester castle grounds looks good on the map

to the right of the apairy is now grassland/scrub

please note to all who would like to steal my bees that they are under 24 hour armed guard

 

[johnandyrob]

Bees dont like crossing large bodys of water the bees on top of Fenwicks department store in Newcastle apparently use the bridges to fly allong to get to Gateshead on the other side of the Tyne

 

[Tom_Pearce]

Don't have a full answer, but I believe that von Frisch showed that bees will forage across water - (360m) (but that some bees flew too low and drowned). It seems that they can't be trained to a feeder that is in the middle of a body of water though ;-(

jeb.biologists.org/content/199/1/155.full.pdf for the paper

 

[Mike a]

If they are happy to cross the water over to Portchester they should do very well as there is lots of forage to collect from the gardens of all the retired people in that area just beyond the castle.

My only concern would be the old land fill dump near by, not seen the figures for the methane releases but at times I can smell it if I'm working in the area.

 

[grahambee]

methane releases

Thankyou Tom and John for your advice.
Hi Mike, as you are a bit more experienced in this how would I know if this is a problem with the site? (Methane)
To be blunt, would you put your bees there? I am currently sharing the site with another new beekeeper and this potential problem never crossed my mind even though I knew there was a tip nearby.

 

[user 6228]

please note to all who would like to steal my bees that they are under 24 hour armed guard

I bet CPO Pertwee could get them

 

[taff..]

armed guard dont mean nothin

plenty of stuff has been nicked from military bases. while I was at Sultan a (very expensive) caravan was nicked by travelers, they bolt cropped the back gate, drove a flatbed in and whinched the caravan up, they were seen on cctv heading for the M27 and the caravan was never seen again.

normal precautions apply

 

[SteveJ]

I bet CPO Pertwee could get them

Just as long as the bees don't get a bit of the old left hand down a bit and end up out to sea.

 

[Headnavigator]

Just as long as the bees don't get a bit of the old left hand down a bit and end up out to sea.

Well if they do they'll be very welcome here!

(I've seen pigeons cross on the ferries and I have no doubt bees are smarter than pigeons!)

 

[Dishmop]

Methane isnt poisonous.

 

[piggy1]

The hydrogen sulphide that is produced with methane is poisonous tho. but depending on what they do with methane they would not be allowed to release neat mehane to the atmosphere.

 

[piggy1]

Methane is not poisonous but the hydrogen sulphide produced by anaerobic digestion of waste is. But they would not be allowed to release this straight to the atmosphere, they must be using it for something such as generating electric or just burning off .

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Methane isnt poisonous.

Can be fatal as an oxygen displacer though (like any gas).

I doubt a rubbish dump would cause much of a problem for bees, but I may be wrong.

 

[user 6228]

Just as long as the bees don't get a bit of the old left hand down a bit and end up out to sea.

I was talking CPO Pertwee not SbL Phillips after all.

 

[grahambee]

I got this message from Mike .A from the forum, so I was going to post it on this. I would like to thank all people who have replied. It's answers like this you could never find in a book

As you may know that whole sculpted hill area to the East of your apiary site was one giant landfill. I was talking to friend of mine yesterday about keeping bees near it and he said it should be fine now they have finished and its got tons of earth and grass over it. You may of noticed dotted all over it was the top of several pipes (not sure if they are still there now) but they were monitoring the Co2 and methane emissions for some time.

At the time it was open it stank if the wind was blowing the wrong way. Only one way to find out and that is try it and see how they do down there.

PS. My friend also said they will fly across water provided its not too wide, he has an apiary near Netley on the waters edge and they fly over Southampton Water to get to the edge of the New Forest, so the small patch of water across to Potchester Castle and beyond is not problem.

If anybody is interested, just below the red dot on the map is a stretch of water. This was used for the navy to test torpedoes.