Scouts or Residents?

639 Views 4 Replies 3 Participants Last post by IAmTheWaterbug, Mar 25, 2020

IAmTheWaterbug

Discussion Starter · Mar 24, 2020

A neighbor has bees flying in and out of a hole in her wall. Do y'all think these are scouts or residents?

As luck would have it, the left-most thingy in that cluster of lights is a Ring camera, and the first motion-triggered video from yesterday or today is this, from about an hour before I took my video:

https://ring.com/share/6807881102445360882

In this case, the motion trigger was the homeowner coming out to look at the bees.

Is it reasonable to think that a full-on move-in event would have triggered the motion detection.

I'm going to work on the assumption that I got there in time, and that these are still scouts. I used the last of my Bee-Quick on an eviction a few days ago, and my new bottle hasn't arrived from amazon yet, but I was able to put a few drops onto a rag and stuff it into that cavity, but 1) it's not nearly enough for an eviction, and 2) I'm not sure that I got it "behind" wherever the bees are, if it's a colony, because I can't see into the wall.

Anyway, I've put a baited box as close as possible to that hole, and I do have a few drops of Bee-Quick in that wall now, so I'm hoping they're scouts, and I'm hoping they choose my box instead the wall.

They're right around the corner from where I live, so I'll return after sundown and seal up that hole with some clear plastic and duct tape. If there's a colony in there, I'm assuming that I'd see 10,000 bees on the plastic tomorrow morning, no?

What do y'all think?

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elmer_fud

· #2 · Mar 25, 2020

I am suspecting scouts.

As an alternative to completely sealing it maybe put an escape cone on it, if there are bees in the wall they will come out (in large numbers) but if there are scouts there will not be a lot on the cone and they will become disinterested when they can no longer get into the hole.

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IAmTheWaterbug

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 25, 2020

elmer_fud said:
put an escape cone on it

Great idea!!! I'd totally forgotten about such a thing. It'd be like a trap-out. Thanks!

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fieldsofnaturalhoney

· #4 · Mar 25, 2020

I vote with Elmer Fud, do you see pollen in any of there sacks going in?

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IAmTheWaterbug

Discussion Starter · #5 · Mar 25, 2020

I asked the homeowner to wait until after dark last night to cover that opening with clear plastic, and she did that. This morning she says there are "not any bees trying to get out" so it looks like we successfully staved off the move-in, and the bees we saw yesterday were all scouts. Success!

Since there are still a few hundreds scouts out there with the opinion that this is a good site, I'm going to leave my baited nuc there and hope they choose it instead of looking for new ways into that wall.

Thanks for the help and suggestions, especially about the escape cone. I should probably make one of those now, just to have it in my toolkit for when I need it.

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