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#bees

86 posts60 participants14 posts today
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DeeAnn Little

Without my glasses I thought that this was some weird dirt clump on the floor that I was about to sweep up, until I saw it moving (very slowly, I don't think it can fly right now). It's having a drink of sugar water from a jar lid and hopefully it'll perk up.

Bumblebee type bee on a hallway floor.
Same bee hanging on a wooden trunk drinking sugar water from a jar lid.
#bees#bee#bugstodon
Public
The Bee Guy

Early!
And you know what they say…
See post 2 attached if you don’t!

theBeeAt3

Basic bee facts every day at 3pm.

# 88

In the US in the 1950s, a chemical company/producer of grass seed, to promote a weed killer, launched a PR campaign declaring white #clover a #weed.
It wasn’t.
It isn’t.
Chemical weed killers are #poisons.
PR that.
#bees

1/2

Replied in thread
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Mazz@1984

@feather1952 Yes - it's a tragedy. In my local area there are still essentially no bees and haven't been for a couple of years now. I'm elated on my walks to ever see them in other areas.
Here at home, I had one and then two little bees visiting my flowering parsley a few months ago so I didn't disturb them. They have disappeared and I haven't seen any more here. Pretty concerning 👀 #NewcastleNSW #Bees

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Tom

I made bee swarm bivouacs. It's an old branch with a black sock attached to piece of plywood. The sock is coated with dirty beeswax and some lemongrass oil added. I put them in the closest trees to the hives. I guess the idea it to make it look like cluster of bees so they gather up there if they leave MY hives, instead of 100 feet up in a tree, so they can be captured. It's mentioned in the 1861 Hive and the Honey Bee book by Lorenzo Langstroth.

A photo showing a square board with a round piece of wood hanging perpendicular and downward from it that has a beeswax coated black sock/stocking on it. It is hanging from a pine tree branch and can be lowered from the ground. It's sometimes referred to by some as a scion but the idea is referenced in Lorenzo Langstroth's 1861 book Hive and the Honey Bee. "Having noticed that a new swarm will almost always alight wherever they see a mass of clustering bees, I find that they can be determined to some selected spot by an old black hat, or even a mullen stalk, which, when colored black, can hardly be distinguished, at a distance, from a clustering swarm. A black woolen stocking or a piece of cloth, fastened to a shady limb, in plain sight of the hives, and where the bees can be conveniently hived, would probably answer as good a purpose"
A photo showing a square board with a round piece of wood hanging perpendicular and downward from it that has a beeswax coated black sock/stocking on it. It is hanging from an English walnut branch and can be lowered from the ground.
#beekeeping#bees#BeeSwarm
Public
𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒑𝒆𝒓

I installed my liquid feeder on the hive a few minutes ago. I'm glad because it will help jumpstart the production of comb for storage and baby bees. 🐝🐝🐝 They seem to have enjoyed their sugar block though.

I'm getting pretty good at lighting the smoker and producing thick, cool smoke. I'm using a blend of cedar chips and burlap. The bees don't seem to mind me at all. I'll check on Bee Arthur this weekend.

Have a good evening! 🌆

A cluster of honeybees on a dry sugar block in the top of a Langstroth hive. The sugar block has holes tunneling into it.
#beekeeping#HarpHives#bees
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Tom

I took the new hive and I divided it vertically to make two 5-frame bait hives. I had a deep sized divider so I just made another one with the ability for the upper one to slot into it. It should work and I can put frames in the lower box too if I want to keep it divided this way for longer.

Now we wait for warmer, drier, less windy weather.

A photo showing two stacked Langstroth deep boxes that have been divided vertically. A slotted board was inserted from the entrance direction and the lower divider placed in it with tabs to block the frame rabbet and a slotted cleat to accept the upper divider that is shaped from plastic core-flute. 5 frames are stacked out of the way to the left.
The 10 frames that are divided being shown.
A split photo, the top showing a plug for the inner cover hole, and the bottom showing the lemongrass oil bait bag laying over the top of the upper divider inside the inner cover hole.
The assembled hive on a stand which is two deep boxes. There is also an external divider to separate the entrances, it fits into the slotted board that extends out from the entrance and is pinned in place with a loose nail. This keeps guard bees from seeing each other if they take up residence and it is also white on one side and bare wood on the other so it makes the entrances look different to the bees if they can't read the words "bee" or "castle". ;)
#beekeeping#bees#SwarmTrap
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Tom

The bait hive, or swarm trap, is set. Lemongrass oil put on the cotton ball in a little plastic bag and it hangs between the first two frames. I rub propolis on all the top bar sides, and I rub saved comb wax from hive inspections that hasn't been rendered on all the foundations. I don't have extra brood comb to use.

This sits at about eye level behind my hives under a little pine tree.

A photo showing a bottle of lemongrass oil and a small jar that is labeled Bee Propolis and a piece of propolis sitting next to it. They are in front of the entrance to a swarm trap bait hive that has a rotating entrance cover that is blue that provides a split opening, a queen excluding opening, and a vented and solid closures.
A photo showing a small zip lock type plastic bag with a cotton ball in it. The bag is thumb-tacked through the bottom and attached to the top of a langstroth bee hive frame and the bag hangs opening down. The bag is left slightly un-zipped.
A photo showing the frames all in place in the bait hive. They are labeled in black ink "BC" for Bee Castle, and in blue ink "Acorn 2024" to indicate the plastic foundation is Acorn that was purchased in 2024.
A photo showing the swarm trap bait hive in place and ready to attract a big friendly swarm. It sits on the stump of a Leyland cypress tree that was cut down and partially under a small pine tree grown from see to the left of it. It holds 6 deep frames with space under them and a telescoping type lid. The entrance is on a wide side. It has handles on each narrow side. It also has a frame on the back so it can be attached or hung from a tree.
#beekeeping#bees#SwarmTrap
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Tom

I spotted the first migratory hives across the river so I guess it's time to put out some bait hives / swarm traps. Looks like a stack of 8 hives. These are apples but I imagine the cherries down river probably have hives too since they'll be blooming first.

A photo showing white objects in the distance beyond a body of water and behind a silver birch tree. They are multiple bee hive boxes on pallets that are stacked at the edge of a trellised apple orchard on the side of a dirt road. There is also crack willow that looks yellow and red-osier dogwood that is reddish on the shore of the water. The orchard has many white looking poles or posts and is a little green from new leaves and buds.
#beekeeping#bees#BeeSwarm
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