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Looking to follow feral black bees to their nest...how to do it????

3K views 11 replies 11 participants last post by  snapper1d 
#1 ·
Any good bee tracking tips?
 
#4 ·
Had an old beekeeper say to put a drop of white paint on the end of a string and touch it to the back of one bee. Time the bee from when she leaves untill she returns, noting the direction she went. 5-minute round trip = 1/4 mile, 10-minute round trip = 1/2 mile etc. I've never tried this, but I do know the oldtimers were good at finding bee trees.
 
#5 ·
Bee Lining.

Find a place where you find bees foraging. Take a piece of slate, or any flat and portable material, like a plate. Place some honey or honey comb on it. Make a circle around the honey w/ powdered rouge, close enuf to the honey that visiting bees will walk thru it and get some on themselves. Watch which way they go and move a little ways in that direction. When a red bee returns you have some idea how long it takes a bee to fly home and back.

Once you have some bees returning, repeat the process w/ another plate some distance away from the original pllate. Say 50 to one hundred feet apart. This is where it helps to have someone helping.

When you have bees coming and going from both locations you can triangulate a more accurate direction towards the hive.

Move in that direction and repeat the one pllate, two plates process again, and so on.

I believe FoxFire Books have a description of Bee Lining. I bet ABC and XYZ of Beekeeping does too.

Could be a fun excursion. Until you find my hives. ;)
 
#9 ·
Find where they are getting their water from. When they fly they will take the same path every time. When the bee take off follow line of site and where you lost him stand there and wait for another and do that all the way to the hive. It will take a while but that is how my mentor used to get their bee when he was growing up. 90 yr of experience he knows what he is talking about.
 
#10 ·
Sorry if this method is mentioned in one of the links, I didn't bother to read them all. But here is a surefire way.

Get the bees collecting from a plate of honey. Watch where they go. Move the plate to the furtherest you saw them and let them start collecting again. Repeat, until you arrive at the hive.

One question. If you have not seen the hive, how do you know it is feral?
 
#11 ·
Quick piece of what I remember from the book Bee Hunter
take a little honey water in tin can put fire under it get a small branch and spray with sugar water
when bees show up take can honey can away
watch the way the bees came from move sugar branch in that direction 25 feet
repeat process after a bit you will not need to heat honey water
when close to hive bee will seem to come from all sides or very strong Bee Line

all this could be very wrong Read the book :)

Tommyt
 
#12 ·
I had an uncle that got me into bee hunting back years and years ago.Thats the way I got all my bees when I first started out.Here's how I did id and what he taught me.Get a piece of come ans a little not much but a small tad of honey.Put it in a clean can and go out to where you will be hunting and take that can and heat it up to where it boils and smokes.The smell will fill the area and it wont take long at all till you see a couple bees buzzing and looking for it.Sit out a plate with a little honey on it and let them start on it.As others have said you can mark one and watch to see how long it takes him to make it back when he leaves.Back then I used my queen marking kit to mark one.Watch the bees when they go up and circle and then leave.Its hard to see them in the woods so pick out a little opening to start from.Watch them going and coming for a while because you might have them coming from different hives.When you start to go after them you can use a transit compass to stay on a good strait line.If you get so far out and dont find them you can set up and burn some more wax and get them coming in again.You will find them just take your time.
 
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