Bees

Doomsday Prepper Forums

Help Support Doomsday Prepper Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Deer are not an issue.

Actually bears don't go into the hive for the honey. Yes, that's the general mis-understanding. But the bears go for the brood. It has great carbohydrates for them. The honey will give them a fun sugar rush but very short term, the carbs are what they want.
 
Just checked on the hives today and one hive has been completely taken over by yellow jackets. I took the top off and yellow jackets came pouring out. Up until a few days ago it was doing great. The yellow jackets this summer are the worse that I've ever seen. Can't wait until the first hard freeze.

Dang, that is a big loss.

At the bee meeting on Monday, the speaker said he always requeens in the Fall not Spring. In the Spring they are rushed to reproduce, etc. If you requeen in the Fall, the have all winter to acclimate.

Sounds good to me. I don't know if it is or not.
 
Just checked on the hives today and one hive has been completely taken over by yellow jackets. I took the top off and yellow jackets came pouring out. Up until a few days ago it was doing great. The yellow jackets this summer are the worse that I've ever seen. Can't wait until the first hard freeze.

I'm sorry for the lose. But it was just one hive. You need to take those YJ and kill them all. An easy way is to seal the entrance & put the whole thing in the freezer for a few days. Don't put poison in there because you want to save the frames/body. You can seal the entrance & put the whole hive in a sealed black plastic bag (cooks + suffocates). But take them out NOW before they attack other colonies. Also it might be time to reduce the entrances so they can defend themselves better.

BTW, this wasn't a 'few day' thing. The colony had to be weak for YJ to take them over. And you have a YJ colony close by... FIND IT NOW. There are 'baits' people use (rotten meat in a trap, search youtube for "yellow jacket trap", you'll see 1000 ways to do it. Bees will ignore rotten meat, but YJ will be all over it. Everyone loses colonies sooner or later.

And Robin, there are always more options. My approach is to NOT replace queens. When the colony senses they have a weak queen, they'll replace her on their schedule. But again my bees are feral. I would follow the advice of your local mentor. He knows your colony, he knows what methods have worked for him. If a $30 queen is the local way to do this, go for it.
 
Don’t know what i may have to offer is relative as I’m Southern Hemisphere, but real world hive manipulation and management experience may translate.

I’m a Certified Organic Commercial Beekeeper living in New Zealand running 1000 production hives.

If you want to know anything feel free to ask...

55396ab007e9a3ece9e4d48b126b7b05.jpg



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
SNZ,
Welcome to the forum.

A few thoughts. You haven't had AHB invasions, have you? (Africanized) Varroa? SHB? What are the biggest issues in the apiary in NZ.

Of course, I'm jealous because your country is doing the most basic intelligent things that mine isn't. No open borders, no selling out to big $$$. No invasions of disease (related to the last 2)...

Tell us some about your mindset of prepping, and what are your biggest concerns?
 
SNZ,
Welcome to the forum.

A few thoughts. You haven't had AHB invasions, have you? (Africanized) Varroa? SHB? What are the biggest issues in the apiary in NZ.

Of course, I'm jealous because your country is doing the most basic intelligent things that mine isn't. No open borders, no selling out to big $$$. No invasions of disease (related to the last 2)...

Tell us some about your mindset of prepping, and what are your biggest concerns?

Luckily we are so remote we haven’t had to contend with Africanised bees or hive beetle

Varroa and AFB are enough to contend with as we don’t feed antibiotics to our bees here.

Well actually...NZ govt has been attempting to sell out large farms to International corporations but were lobbied against.

Policy has ruined the local housing market in Auckland by permitting International buyers to invest heavily in the housing infrastructure....now many Kiwis Cant afford to buy their first home.

Still at least we don’t have fundamentalist refugees overtaking our cities like in France and Germany ...that’s scary.

I guess my biggest concern is a collapse of infrastructure whether CME, EMP, natural disaster, pandemic, nuclear winter etc and even without a huge population the onflow effect will impact negatively on the majority low socio economic populace here.

Thankfully I live in a remote area and am fairly aware of the issues we could potentially face so have prepps already in place.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
Pretty much the whole North Island is a remote area, isn't it? (I guess excepting Aukland)

The North Island is very remote and safe in places but does have several major cities along the main trunk highway running North and South.

The problem in the far north is poverty so there are large low socioeconomic rural regions where crime and meth use is rampant...

If you hold out your left hand and that represents the North Island, I live on the outside edge of the thumb.

This is the Coromandel Peninsular and extremely beautiful.

Yes those are fully feral wild [emoji203] , I pop one now and again for the freezer.

Here my front lawn
8b1a27c76b6c3db07fe0077e7019477d.jpg




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
My apologies for the delay.

Do not panic!

Go to the store, get some Swiffer pads. Unscented, and generic brand work just fine. Cut it into 1/6th pieces. Put 2 in opposite corners at each level. 4-6 pieces will be sufficient. The bees will puff it up some. The beetles run across it & get tied up & die there. It is a beautiful thing. When each piece gets a whole bunch (dozens) of SHB, take it out & replace it.

SHB are not the end of the world. Easily resolved. Minimize any corners or places they can hide. Remove extra hive bodies if they are empty (less room to hide/run).
 
My apologies for the delay.

Do not panic!

Go to the store, get some Swiffer pads. Unscented, and generic brand work just fine. Cut it into 1/6th pieces. Put 2 in opposite corners at each level. 4-6 pieces will be sufficient. The bees will puff it up some. The beetles run across it & get tied up & die there. It is a beautiful thing. When each piece gets a whole bunch (dozens) of SHB, take it out & replace it.

SHB are not the end of the world. Easily resolved. Minimize any corners or places they can hide. Remove extra hive bodies if they are empty (less room to hide/run).
I read about the swiffer pads. I think I have the wrong type, mine are just one ply. I also read about corrugated boxes and 2. They get inside and if you have a poison that the bees can't get to it kills the beetles. Don't like that idea.

I'll look for some of the puffy swiffer pads.

Thanks
 
The speaker at bee meeting mentioned the Swifter pad method. I'm going to put some in today if we get some sun.

He said the secret is not to leave in more than 1 week or then start living underneath pad.
 

If you leave the Swifter pad in place too long, the Beetles make a home underneath because they are protected.

I'm bummed, I just went down and pulled out a piece of cardboard I had put in the bottom board to see what would fall out. I found about 5 larvae.

I didn't open because it is cloudy today, but stuck some of thenswiffers that I had cut into strips into the top box where the feeders are. We shall see.
 
Robin, don't put the Swiffer pad on the bottom board, put it between hive bodies. Nowhere to underneath.

AD, make a yellow jacket trap. I've heard from guys across the country, yellow jackets have been a real problem everywhere. But traps work great & don't catch bees. Search youtube. I've seen traps made from 2 liter soda bottles. I've seen traps made from 15 gallon totes. And both have filled up.

I actually pitty folks who don't have Africanized bees. My girls have zero problems with hive beetles and zero problems with yellow jackets. Attack. Mob. Kill. It's a great strategy. They only wished it'd work on me, but they keep trying. But strong hives solve many, many problems.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top