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My son and I are going to try to locate some feral hives to get us started. We live in part of the Mark Twain Forest. Does any one have any input on lining/hunting bee's? We have located one swarm but it is 36' up the tree. :( We will be setting traps around this one. Any thought's would be great.
Jim
My uncle in the hills of Kentucky used to catch several, turn one loose at a time and follow till they lost it. Then he released another and another. He used toilet paper to mark the trail. He found a lot this way. He had a little box with a screen he kept them in.
if you have located 1 then it was made by 1 set a few traps in that area it is a lot like fishing
This might be interesting:
http://sites.google.com/site/beelini...rted/bee-boxes
I tried beelining without much success. I made a device for sucking bees off flowers that worked great.
https://picasaweb.google.com/Michael...16212584044674
But when I released them they would spiral upward like the books say and then my eyes were not quick enough to see which direction their beeline went. Maybe your son's eyes will be quicker. Good luck.
Last summer, a friend and I took empty water bottles and caught bees from a single source of bushes that were in bloom. We used a GPS to mark are location. WE would then let the bees go one at a time. It was tough to follow them as they circled several times before they went straight. (We hoped back to the hive) We used a compass for a bearing the bee flew.We then went to another location not too far away, and released more. We were usually able to get a couple of "lines". Repeated one more time. Each time we marked our location with GPS and got a "Bee bearing" In this way, you can triangulate. I used Google earth to plot location and bearings. The lines will cross at some point. The more bearing you have, the more accurate. The information I got from this was, there must be a feral hive in those woods within a 1/4 mile radius. of where my lines crossed.(accuracy was hard to manage) There are no houses anywhere near that area. Since it was summer, I opted to wait till spring before the leaves came out to look for flying bees. I think at least, I have a good location for a swarm trap:) This bee lining technique is all on the internet. Search bee lining and you will find it.
Good luck
I did a bit of beelining yesterday. Need some input for others. I found that bee flight is app. 8 miles per hour but I don't know how long it takes her to unload to another bee in the hive. I guessed 1 min. just to have something to calculate by. There was a black colony and a gold colony and the black bee took exactly 4 min for round trip. The gold bee took 4 min. 20 sec. My calculation says around 350 yds. the black bee flew off due south 6 ft. from the ground and the gold bee went up 20 ft. and about 5 degrees ESE. Any thoughts from someone?
Shake some powdered sugar on them.....................makes them a lot easier to follow!Quote:
Originally Posted by MichaelShantz
Interesting how many are interested in this, let me see if I got it right, your going into a notional forest to cut out and hopefully catch native bees(probably kill more than you catch) cause you cant see to find one of the 5000 vendors who will sell you a nuc?
Not positive about MT, but most forerst preserves doing that would be illegal.
gmcharlie, where did you read that the original poster was doing a cut out on any bee trees? Looks like he's putting out traps. I say good luck and please keep us posted on your success!
May have a point, but also still illegal in most areas, taking any plants or animals from a national forest is prohibited. And I am dang sure there is no season on Bees. They area hes in is real late to still catch a swarm. If I am wrong my apolgies, but it always astounds me the effort people go thru to avoid spending a few dollars with the profesionals that make websites and information avaliable.
If you would rather buy a new Mustang than build your own hotrod, you don't get it. Some of us are driven to get first-hand experience in spite of ourselves. Besides, most bee suppliers don't offer what the op wants, feral survivors.
Hey Charlie dont be astounded; just human nature. Just got to have an outlet for human creativity. "I made it my self" is priceless. 'Nother thing; as soon as "the establishment" tells people that they shall not, it is just about guaranteed they are gonna do it!
If there were any wild ones in my area I would likely be giving it a try!
Why spend 125.00 to get a Nuc, when you can spend 300.00 in supplies to catch free bees.:) I do it all the time.
Let me clear the air here. We are located in the National Forest and we own our land. We have many neighbor's who also live with in these boundaries. 5-3000 acres. There is more privet land in this area than National. The one we located IS ON privet land. We are NOT planing on cutting any trees unless they fall on our drive 1/2 mile drive/right of way. We haven't caught any swarms but we have had one fly over the house. They are logging so much of the National Forest in this area that there is little chance of finding any anyway.
dude hunting for swarms is how i got my bees go for it!! this guy is the best guy on you tube on bees so far , he talk about bee lining ,good luck http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ7eqau_q5E&feature=plcpQuote:
Originally Posted by Hoot Owl Lane Bees
and check the rest of his video they are good and he explain alot too