Sunday, April 29, 2012
Bee mayhem
My bees got lost yesterday. Since the "big move", seriously 30 ft away, about half of the bees got lost. The last few days have been cool and stormy so there hasn't been much activity. But yesterday was warm and sunny. I was at a friends house and when I came home, there were thousands of bees flying around in the air where the hive used to be. I immediately geared up and grabbed the new empty hive. I placed it on the edge of the cloud of bees and they went right in to rest. Most of them eventually found their way back to the active hive, but a few hundred were too weak. I shook most of them back into the active hive, but still lost quite a few. The ground is littered with tiny striped carcasses this morning. There are still a few that are crawling around trying to get the strength to fly, but I doubt they will make it. Weird how you get attached to a bug and will sit outside dribbling sugar water on them each individually to try and bring them around. I placed a branch in front of the entrance to the active hive so they have to orientate themselves when they leave. Hopefully this will help them find their way back home today.
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That is sad, but shows how 'little' reasoning capability they have... They ONLY know one place as home...
ReplyDeletePoor, lost bees!
ReplyDeleteMy mom moved her hive 60 miles! Worked out okay, right up until the small town she had moved to realized she had a b-e-e-h-i-v-e and freaked right out.
She had to find a new home for them -- and this when the rapport between her and the bees had become so good she didn't have to wear the outfit or smoke 'em to collect honey, just walk up, say howdy, and swap out the frames on the no-larva side. (I have no idea how this worked -- they certainly weren't so tolerant of me!)