New beekeeping with AZDuffman

Quote: odiousgambit

Those survivalist guys frequently eat scorpions, so that one is not an absolute. In fact, scorpion I'd try, the rest ...

Really? I think it'd be way easier to eat small stuff. Like ants that you could just swallow. Having to bite off a mouthful and then crunch the exo... man. Survival only for me lol.

Worms are cake. Taste just like they smell. The mucus is a turn off, though =/

Quote: Face

Really?

yeah, I can picture it potentially being tasty ... worms, etc, no. Ants? there is an ant smell I sometimes notice - when you crush them. Not appetizing.

I'm told that eating ants individually is a waste of time since there are so few calories, it seems the manner in which to consume them is to scoop up entire parts of the nest.
Grubs are actually a slightly better protein value than a sirloin steak.

I think it was Jim Bridger who was mauled by a bear and left behind by his companions, the things he ate were recorded in his memoirs. Rats were listed but I think we would refer to them as field mice. He rubbed his bear-maulled back on a fungus covered dead fallen tree and he ate some mold from it, ate insects and carrion of every sort he encountered and finally made it back to Ohio.

I wonder if this is affecting your bee health.

Quote:

"Agricultural chemicals are only part of the problem," Krupke added. "Homeowners and urban landscapes are big contributors, even when hives are directly adjacent to crop fields."

In addition to neonicotinoids, researchers found significant traces of pyrethroids, an insecticide commonly used by homeowners to battle wasps, mosquitos and other nuisance pests.

Increasingly, studies point to a combination of disease, pesticides and habitat fragmentation as the reason for the continued decline in honeybee numbers.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2016/05/31/Honeybees-pick-up-pesticides-from-non-crop-plants-too/1941464717953/

Zika fears:
Microencephaly births: fears are widespread despite the ONLY such births in Brazil being in the slums outside ONE NW city. Poverty and sanitation are obviously involved as pregnant women are found all over Brazil and so is the zika bearing mosquito.

Guillian Barre Syndrome: a bit more worrisome this seems to be less prone to be confined to the poor indeed its more concentrated among the middle class, but studies are really not available.

Extermination of mosquitoe seems to only result in totally wiping out all bees in the area, so USA response to tabloid generated fears is "to kill honey bees".

HIVE UPDATE

Two new hives, trying this again. Working from home is such a help! Installed them a few weeks ago. Fed them around 9 pounds of sugar each! Then it rained. Got cold. Rained. Rained. And then it rained! Then more cold!

Ideally I should have fed again, but we should be having nectar flow. So I just opened the hives.

Hive #1 was doing a bit better. Cool out today so they were very docile. Good laying and some food storage in both, though #2 better. One observation is that I used the old frames that have the old cells, so a big, big head start for the ladies.

I may make some sugar water and leave it out in the yard as I replaced the feeders with frame due to the mess they made making comb in the open space.

Two days ago, a swarm of honey bees swarmed our yard and found a hole from and old bolt that had been removed from our cement block pillars which support the fence. The hole was small enough it took them hours to all get inside the cement block.

The story is all honey bees in Arizona are Africanized. I'm allergic to bees and just can't have them nesting this close to the house, just waiting to cop a kill Petro mindset, and do the killer bee dance all over this old body. Bees gotta go.

So last night I went to the True Value hardware store and got a can of bee spray, waited till after dark, and zero dark thirty'd their asses. Only two made it out and they died close to the entrance. This morning there are 21 dead bees at the base of our patio door, dead on the ground. The rest of the hive got out and are huddled on a cement pillar, it looks like they are huddled around the queen.

This is creepy. I can't think of another explanation, for the dead bees at the base of our door other than they picked up my scent somehow and followed it trying to get to me? I'm waiting on a call back from pest control to come remove these critters.

Quote: petroglyph

This is creepy. I can't think of another explanation, for the dead bees at the base of our door other than they picked up my scent somehow and followed it trying to get to me? I'm waiting on a call back from pest control to come remove these critters.

I can promise they did not take out a contract on you. There must have been a source of light near the door.

Quote: AZDuffman

Fed them around 9 pounds of sugar each!

Man, that is one heck of alot of sugar packets from McDonalds which is my way of acquiring sugar. Good luck with the (eventual) honey.

Bee infestations are often not handled by government agencies only private bee keepers.

They have a picture of Petro on their tiny cellphones.