Hello all,
BTW, I finally made a donation to this great forum. Sorry for the delay...I have no excuses.
My hives are on a Navy Base. Three of them are in a field where helicopters like to play around in. This is my second year in the field with no problems until......
I inpsected my hives 2 weeks ago only to find two of them knocked down!! The first thing I thought were vandals or hunters... My friend and I put them back together. My friend got stung once (his initiation).
It turns out that the V-22 Osprey was flying that weekend and knocked them down. The down draft on that thing is enormous!! Its a great field and I don't want to move them so I strapped the boxes together and staked the stands into the ground. So far, so good.
Effects of the attack:
One hive lost a queen. They quickly made 4 supercedure cells and quite a few swarm cells. I cut out the swarm cell and let the new queens emerge. They emerged last week. I guess I still have to wait at least 2 moe weeks to see eggs??
Also, all the bees are now foragers and collecting lots of nectar. The two deep boxed are jammed packed with it. I am afraid that when the new queen starts laying, she'll have no place to lay. I plan on pulling 4-5 frames of capped honey and replacing it with foundation.
Is this what you usually do?
Thanks in advance.
Mike
BTW, I finally made a donation to this great forum. Sorry for the delay...I have no excuses.
My hives are on a Navy Base. Three of them are in a field where helicopters like to play around in. This is my second year in the field with no problems until......
I inpsected my hives 2 weeks ago only to find two of them knocked down!! The first thing I thought were vandals or hunters... My friend and I put them back together. My friend got stung once (his initiation).
It turns out that the V-22 Osprey was flying that weekend and knocked them down. The down draft on that thing is enormous!! Its a great field and I don't want to move them so I strapped the boxes together and staked the stands into the ground. So far, so good.
Effects of the attack:
One hive lost a queen. They quickly made 4 supercedure cells and quite a few swarm cells. I cut out the swarm cell and let the new queens emerge. They emerged last week. I guess I still have to wait at least 2 moe weeks to see eggs??
Also, all the bees are now foragers and collecting lots of nectar. The two deep boxed are jammed packed with it. I am afraid that when the new queen starts laying, she'll have no place to lay. I plan on pulling 4-5 frames of capped honey and replacing it with foundation.
Is this what you usually do?
Thanks in advance.
Mike