Successful Beeline

[pzbeez]

Had a beautiful day in the sun yesterday beelining in some feilds not far from my house and managed to find the bee tree without much trouble. I must admit i was a little sceptical of whether a bee tree could overwinter very well in my area (ontario, canada), but i think this one did, altough i suppose it could be an early swarm.

It was only about 2 feet off the ground in a hollow in a dead birch tree. Needless to say there are now 2 swarm traps in nearby trees, readily waiting. Now im just waiting for the wind to quit and the sun to come out again so as i can try again. :D:D

Paul.

[Josh Carmack]

How did you line them? Give me some gory details, I have had a few successful trap outs, and am now going to start bee lining to increase my hives.

[pzbeez]

First i found an area which had foraging bees and to the best of my knowledge, there were no 'box' hives nearby (or at least ones visible from the road). Parks, farmers fields etc are good starts. Then i captured some bees working dandelions in a beelining box

** As a side note i captured both nectar and pollen feeding bees, both of which worked well, so long as the bees pollen baskets weren’t loaded. The bee's with partly or totally full pollen baskets weren’t interested.

The box i made is a 3 chamber box based on the one Jim Fischers dad makes, and others i have seen on the net. It doesn’t have to be pretty, just catch bees and let them feed. There’s also some other ideas for trapping them which sound like good ideas on this site from Australia.

Beelining Manual. (http://www.bindaree.com.au/hints/hint12_beelining.htm)

Anyways, catch some bees in the box, then let them fill up with nectar, then let them go and watch which way they go. I used the triangulation method which involves bait stations in 2 or three different locations and gives you pretty good accuracy. Once i had a good beeline, i had a good idea which clump of trees and then i just checked the most likely subjects. Just like with your own hives, once your within 5 or 10 feet, you can hear them (especially during a flow ).

I like the thought of survivor hives, so i definitely won’t be cutting or trapping these guys out, but i will be doing my best to capture some of those genetics.

Are they survivors? I don’t know, but i hope to find more wild hives and try to monitor them occasionally so as i can see how well they overwinter.

Paul.