how to find/locate nearby feral hive

[Sully1882]

Ok anytime I start to work my hive, adding syrup or just looking at things there always seems to be a number of strange bees that come around pretty quickly. I knew this since the first day I placed my hive there and how quickly the strange bees came. My bees are a russian strain and are darker than the strange bees which are light and copper and look like an Italian strain. My girls hold there own quite well and they end up beating the living daylights out of them and leave 10 or 15 of them crawling on the ground. i want to locate this feral hive and see what kind of shape it is in and then perform a trap out on it in the spring since it may be too late in the year for one now. Any ways of tracking the bees from my location? Any recommendations would be great! It can't be far since I can have open honey in the driveway and in no time my bees and the strange bees are there in huge numbers.

thanks in advance,

Sully

[robo mantis]

You can set up a feeder in the fall when nectar flow is down and they should be a lot more trackable. Especially with so many bees. All you need to do is catch a few of the strange bees and start them on the feeder. They should orient and bring more.

[BoilerJim]

do a search on Randy Ray from 8-12-11. He spoke about how he tracked some wild/feral bees to the hive.

[WI-beek]

search bee lining, bee tree hunting, bee hunting on the net.

Here is a free book on google books, Title: "Bee Hunting"
http://books.google.com/books?id=2Ll...page&q&f=false

If you place a dish of honey out you should be able to mark bees backs with chalk and see how long it takes they to return. There is a formula that tell you how far away it is. The method used to locate the hive is triangulation or by following the direction of the bees when they leave the dish after you have determined the distance. If you determin they are 150 yards to the south you might move 200 yards, set up shop again and then they should head north from dish. Then move 50 yards and they might move south again or south east or east or whatever, eventually you find them. Triangulation works by setting up shop in three locations, getting three flight paths, and by making a map you should be able to geet a real good idea on the area the beetree or hive is located.

[Bigtwin]

I suspected I had feral bees because I do not currently have bees and I was pretty sure there were no beeks within 2 to 3 miles of me.

I placed an open feeder (chicken waterer) in the backyard and noticed most flew to the south. We are currently in a drought and I knew they would probably be using a pond about a 1/4 mile in that direction. I went to the pond and found bees flying slightly to the SW...so I began walking the area and found a nice feral hive about 75 yards to the SW of the pond, along a creek. The hive is in a cottonwood, about 50 ft high. I'm continuing to feed and hope to catch a swarm next spring.