Is anybody raising AB I think there ought to be a good discusion on these bees. I have surf the net about AB and I have found conflecting things about AB which say that you can kill the AB queen and instal a European honey bee queen and she will somewhat calm the hive down.
Right now there here Texas and other southeren states and it's just a matter of time they will be in your area and you will know when the bees start getting mean and chase you down the raod about a 1/2 a mile.
You ones that said to me I live in Texas around Houston and my bees are EHB ok so far your the lucky ones but its just a matter of time and you will be dealing with them
I'm just starting out bee keeping and I have two hives one in the wall of my shop and one in the eave of my house and I was ask how do I know there AB and not EHB well I can set out about 3 to 4 feet and not bother them just watch them and of course I have my bee suit on and stat attacking me for no reason at all and I have seen video on EHB and they even pick them up and with no bee suit.
Well anyway is anybody raising AB and if so # 1 do you have to mow with your bee suit on # 2 how far away should the AB hive be before they will not attack you. # 3 Has it been worth the hassil raising AB.
Thanks
using a vac on just about any honey bee removal will tick em off. if you are going to do the removal I would suggest using a little smoke but not to much as it can cause the queen to run and hide and make it more difficult to find her.
What I would do is to perform the removals, set the devil bees up in their new hives. If you have queen excluders set them on top of the bottom boards to keep the ahb queen from leaving. wait a few days and provide them with plenty of sugar water. after you are sure they have settled in and accepted the new hive as home. order your new queens. you will be hard pressed to find queens this time of year of you are planning on doing the removal now. Something you can do is if you have to get them out now is go ahead and do it as stated above and just leave their queen until spring. in spring their numbers will be lower and they will be more likely to accept a new queen. again this is just what i would do and your milage may vary
That's what I will do I have to get them out that's my woodshop and also where I store my dryed wood. I harvest my own lumber to sell and also sell wood chips and barbeque wood so the bees have to be moved.
Thanks
do you have the equipment to place them in hives? When you perfom the removal make sure some one knows where you are and what you are doing. It would be helpful if you found some one in you local bee club to maybe be brave / crazy enough to help you.
by setting the queen excluder ontop of your bottom board you allow the workers to come and go but keep the queen contained. then set you hive bodies ontop of the queen excluder. I would then do my best to feed them so that they make it through winter with as big a cluster as possible. If you try to cut and save the honey comb you will be in for a big big mess. One thing you could do was after the removals and the bees are setteled in, just open feed the honey back to them. down that far south Texas you should still have plenty of warm weather ahead of you.
...snip... If you try to cut and save the honey comb you will be in for a big big mess. One thing you could do was after the removals and the bees are setteled in, just open feed the honey back to them...snip...
I would mount the brood comb in frames for sure, if not, the bees won't have any reason to stay in your new hive. Once you have brood combs in there, its not much more trouble to fill the hive body with combs containing pollen and honey to give them a kick start. JMO As stated, your mileage may vary.
I forgot to paste the link for the Bushkill bee vac- you could build one pretty easily. Read his descriptions on its use, particularly the parts about adding back brood and honey. If I were in your shoes, I would put a queen excluder between the boxes to limit the number of frames you have to look at to find the queen.
I have look called searched for anyone to help me with no luck and the one’s I ask said H_ _ L no so I’m on my own. I know I will have to put my dog up in the house and he won’t like that but at least he will be alive. I have all it takes to get the bees my concern is I will be tearing into the wall and using the smoke as I do it. I have to vacuum up the bees and then get the broad out and the honey comb and wire it to the frames. I’m not going to keep any for myself the bees get it all.
I have noticed in the evening around 4:30 pm there coming in with pollen and not just a few bees either.
I will be getting them right after the wife goes to work which is 8 am no sooner are no later 8 am on the dot she goes to work.
After I get the bees and put the broad in and the honey comb do I have to leave the hive there over night I would sure like to move them A.S.A.P.
I use a bee-vac on aggressive bees all the time. Just have to make sure you are suited up good with lots of layers and the cracks are all sealed. There is a tipping point in bee mass, where they decide they are doomed and give up the fight. Usually it is when you are about halfway done.
If they are too aggressive, I just destroy them with soapy water. Usually these are the hives that hit me right off with 200+ guards or more. A couple of dozen head butters are sort of expected when I destroy their home; those bees don't bother me and usually calm down when I hive them. The others - history!
When you remove them - vac, vac, vac... then use a little smoke to get them off the comb you want to cut, cut it and repeat until done. It's much easier to have a helper to strap the removed comb into empty frames, but I have done it alone before. It just takes longer and makes things more complicated. I have found big rubber bands and foundationless frames are the best for me for installing removed brood comb. All you need is a few pieces of brood comb and you can just scrape out the rest and feed it back to them. Especially if they are attacking you. Just have to make sure you get all of it. Ice chests work best for putting the honey/comb into.
Make sure someone knows you are doing it and are around to help or at least call 911.
I have never done any of this, but it seems like putting the bee vac up to the opening where they are coming out for 10 or 15 minutes might be a good idea. If they came out with smoke, I might then put in a little smoke to get more of them contained in the vacuum before trying ot open the wall. The Bushkillfarms bee vac sucks them directly into a hive body so you don't have to transfer them later.
I would probably have a pump sprayer full of soapy water pressurized and ready to go in case you needed to invoke the nuclear option....
That’s the beevac I made and going to use and I may wait till this weekend to get the bee’s. I’m trying to get the wife to set in the car about 50 feet away and watch me. I will have a sprayer there full of soapy water incase things go south on me. I will have video on it and I will post it. Thanks for all the help.
Note: Reactivating an ancient thread to ask a question to a specific member does a disservice to all the other members of the forum who are using the "What's New" forum feature to monitor new activity.
I suggest use of the 'Private Message' / 'Conversation' / 'Message' feature of this forum to contact individual members. At a given posted message, click on the MemberID, then choose "Message" to start a new Private Conversation.
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