Robbing, and tracking feral Bees

[billabell]

This spring I had 3 hives all Russians. All three swarmed and I captured 1 so I now have 4 hives. I am in western/central VA in the mountains. The closest bee hives to me are about 8 miles (that I am aware of). Where my hives are located they back up to about 1,000 acres of forest. We have had about 4 days of 60 degrees. I have my entrances reduced to 1/2" because of the attempted robbery going on. The robbers appear to be 90 percent Russian, but I do not think they are coming from my hives. I am thinking they are the escaped swarms from this spring. Does anyone know a good way to track feral bees?

[AstroBee]

Of course robbing from feral colonies can occur, but most of the robbing I see comes from hives in the same yard. Bee lining is a technique to track feral colonies. For details, see:

https://sites.google.com/site/beelining/

http://northernwoodlands.org/article...-wild-beehives

[billabell]

Thanks. Very interesting sites.

[Roland]

Find the book "Oak Openings" by James Fennimore Cooper. It details beelineing techniques, as of 1812.

Crazy Roland

[Joebee]

Last weekend I sat out 3 buckets of comb scraps from a cutout for the bees to clean up. I noticed that maybe half the bees leaving went the opposite direction of my hives. I used thier direction of flight to make a reference point on the horizon and started walking that way. Every few seconds I would see a loaded bee blast past me confiming I was on course. Found the bees entering a tree about 1/8 mile from where I started. Whats funny is last spring I had placed a swarm trap in a tree about 20ft from this bee tree and never knew it was there.