Honey Bees have taken over my salt water pool
bigpaws12
13 years ago
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softmentor
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
how to move wild honey bees
Comments (17)Update: I finished building the the new hive Saturday morning, then put it in place with the escape cone and started clearing branches around the tree. I actually had to clear a couple just to set the hive up under the trunk. Between cutting branches I kept sealing off more spots where they were escaping aorund the cone. Eventually I realized that was a losing battle, and decided that since I was suited up to work bees anyway, I might as well try to locate the hollow they were in and move them. I took a small bit and a dowel to fit and probed around the trunk to find spots where I knew a hollow was near the surface. When I went to start the neighbors borrowed chainsaw, I realized it was out of gas and that I didn't have any premixed 2-stroke fuel handy either. Tried using a bow saw, but that was no fun. So, I put a crosscut blade in the circular saw and did plunge cuts to carve blocks, then a crowbar to break out chunks. The first hollow had dead wood but no bees, worked on another spot for a while and got nowhere as far as actually removing wood. Found another bulge over what was once an old knot near the entrance hole (the entrance cone was still working to steer hive traffic mainly thorugh it instead of around me) I pried back the square I'd cut and out flew a bee, and I saw a flash of comb behind it. So I topped off the smoker (having already realized that week-dead oak leaves were much better smoker fuel than the smoker fuel that came witht he borrowed smoker) and popped out the inital chunk, then decided to carve out a bit more. At this point I really began to appreciate the smoker. Turns out the comb was aligend edgewide to the direction of hte fall, it had a little new wax on the top edge, and was a little squised looking on the bottom edge, but was in remarkably good shape when I started, and they had a few peices of brand new comb on the new top of the hive. The first couple of peices of comb pretty much had to be torn out to make enough room to work, all honey, mostly old comb. The rest of the comb I had to cut in half to pull out and so it would fit on the bars I was tying it to. I started just using Buck skinning knife, but after the first peice, I got a bread knife to have soem reach to cut the combloose way back in the hollow. Each chunk was between 12-15" long and about 8" in height when tied to the bars. Of the peices, about 3-4 where a mix of uncapped honey and brood, which I put near the main entrance to the new hive, and around 10 were honey. I kept a few chunks of the honeycomb that were too small to tie on after making sure they were free of brood. On the brood comb, I even tied on the little peices. When I headed in for the night, long after dark, I think only one sliver of honey was left back in a hollw I couldn't fish it out of and I'd gotten all of the broodcomb in the main cavity. While I'd been working, many of the bees had clustered in the cone/passage. At one point I was afraid they were jammed so I expanded the opening, but it appears they were just clustering. I think most of the bees were still in the corners of the old hive. There may be another section of hollow yet towards the base of the trunk, and that sliver heading up of honeycomb that I'll need to try to get access to if the hive has not fully moved downstair by Monday. Since thier old home is now wide open and all the food and brood is a walk downstairs, I hope they will find their way down quickly. I didn't see the queen, but I was preoccupied transfering the comb and figured morning light would tell if they had decided to move on down, though by the time I was done, the new hive box had started getting pretty full of bees....See MoreWe've lost most of our Honey Bees :(.
Comments (16)His points are well taken in some cases but seriously biased and miss entirely the point of using honeybees for pollination. There are no other pollinators - native or imported - that can be brought together in sufficient numbers to support economic pollination of the mega plantings farmers must grow to be competitive. Native pollinators are entirely inadequate for production of almonds as an example. The same is true for production of blueberries, cranberries, blackberries, cherries, and apples. There is a bit of wriggle room in this since orchard mason bees can be grouped together into nesting boxes that would permit them to pollinate some crops but the expense of doing so is currently significantly higher than the cost of honeybees. He is perfectly right that we import most of our honey. That is a crying shame in my opinion. We are perfectly capable of producing honey here in the U.S. and did produce all we could consume plus enough to export until about 30 years ago. That is when China and a few other very low cost countries began to ship honey into the U.S. at prices that were below the cost of production in the U.S. which drove our honey producers out of business or forced them to change their business from honey production to pollination. Taken all in all, they guy's arguments don't stand up to intense scrutiny, but only a beekeeper would recognize the fallacies in his arguments. My 12 colonies are doing fine thank you. I inspected one colony yesterday and reversed the brood chambers to get the queen to lay eggs in a different part of the hive. DarJones...See MoreHoney Bees anyone?
Comments (9)My yard is mostly clover... or should I say mostly honeybees. They are everywhere. You can't take one step without disturbing a few. I also have quite a few borage plants in my herb garden and they are constantly loaded with honeybees. I mentioned this to a lady who lives in the area (I'm near Chattanooga) because I had read that a good percentage of the population has disappeared and I thought they had just been misplaced and were all here in my yard, and wondered if she had a lot of them too. She said she hadn't seen a honeybee in her gardens in 2 years, but that her neighbors use a lot of chemicals. I try to stay as organic as possible (not strictly) and I don't have neighbors' yards bordering mine. It seems strange that it's so spotty. So many here and none there. Might that be explained by areas where more people are or are not using pesticides that are not bee-friendly? Chris...See MoreRock Salt finish on pool coping
Comments (22)quote" Kelly, did you see the pictures she linked? "quote Yes, my heart breaks for this quality of workmanship. It still, unfortunately, doesn't change a thing. The concrete coping is poured and the builder made a sincere attempt to remedy the situation. Note to all readers, Although it may appear I'm taking sides, I'm not. I'm fullfilling a promise I've made to every member of every pool forum I've ever participated in, which in my introduction to the board's membership is always as follows: """ I promise you guys I'm not here to spam for work, if you feel my replies are spamming bring it up immediately to the moderators and if work comes from my interaction on the board that's a great reward for my membership. And equally I'll never sugarcoat the truth, I promise to call the situation exactly as I, and I alone, see it based on a lifetime in the pool construction industry. It may or may not be the answer you wanted to hear but it's my take based on similar situations over the course of my career. """ I've ran plenty of leads just like this member's and had to break the news to them in the same manner, i.e. presenting facts. Some listen and some don't, they simply look for another pool builder to side with them. I've seen plenty of other pool builders sued and have yet to see one in a position as her pool builder lose. The Contract did not state that "job completion" was dictated at the time she said the work is satisfactory to her liking. The man did come back and attempt to resolve the situation by slightly reworking the new coping's blemishes. I'm sorry but the job is complete, and if it goes down a legal highway I doubt if the answer will be any different when the gavel swings to hit the bench with a ruling. quote" My suggestion, work with the man in any manner possible while staying polite yet firm. You might even consider offering him a reduced price to redo the work. "quote I'll stand behind this quote and offer it once again. See ya, Kelly...See Morejulysun
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agobarkdog
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agojulysun
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoKonrad___far_north
12 years agolast modified: 9 years agoJRG13
11 years agolast modified: 9 years agojjs95
7 years agomannixcarver
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoCarolyn
6 years agoKonrad..just outside of Edmonton Alberta
6 years agoBecky Boat
5 years agoHU-808484371
5 years agoMatt G
4 years agolast modified: 4 years agoAngela Zuill
4 years agoEveline Zoratti-Oser
3 years agoHU-449247595
3 years agoCarolyn
3 years agoMs. KR Bronson
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2 years agoLars
29 days agolast modified: 29 days ago
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