# Bees close by



## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

The last few days I’ve seen honey bees drinking water from a dog bowl by an out door spigot. I thought this was odd since there is a spring in every hollow around the farm. Those bees are somewhere close by. If I can find the bee tree I’ll have hives out for them come spring.

This morning the water level in the dog bowl was very low so I mixed up a cup of sugar water and poured it in the bowl. The pics are from noon today. I had hundreds of bees coming in for a drink. I cleaned up an old jar feeder I had in the shop and set it out for them with sugar water. 

Years ago after dad said he was going to stop growing peaches I decided to get bees. I set them out in a good spot near the old orchard which had lots of clover. 2 weeks later I caught dad up there spraying malathion on the peach trees. He’s decided to try to grow another crop of peaches. He killed my bees!

One hive had less than 100 survivors. The other lost half their numbers but recovered some what over the summer. That fall, when the one hive died the other group abandoned their hive and vanished. That was 4 or 5 years ago. Evidently that hive has survived. I just have to find them.


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## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

I hope you find them.

I have a bee water dish for the wild bees that use all our trees for pollen. It is a low dish with a layer of marbles in it. The water level is half to 3/4 up the marbles. It allows the bees to drink without drowning. I'd rather give them their own waterer than see them drown in our pool each summer.


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## readytogo (Apr 6, 2013)

http://beehivejournal.blogspot.com/2009/02/bee-sugar-syrup-recipe-11-21.html
Back in my days the elders fed them sweet water made with sugar or honey and the bee hives where always full. Good Luck.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

It’s 3pm now and hundreds of bees are still coming in for a meal. So many are coming and going I can clearly see the direction they are coming from. I put the bee feeder in a super. I want them to learn to come to a white box for food. Tomorrow I’ll put the super in a little garden cart. Moving a few feet at a time I go in the direction of the bee tree.

I’ll keep feeding them over the next week and I’ll keep moving the cart (with feeder) until I find the bee tree. I’m sure it’s within 400 yards. As long as large numbers keep coming to feed this will be easy.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

If you find them are you going to leave them in the tree until spring?


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

hashbrown said:


> If you find them are you going to leave them in the tree until spring?


Unless I can get to the queen easily I'll have to. But now I'm concerned something else is happening. Something strange is going on with these bees.

1. Several times today I saw a couple dozen bees ball up and kill one or two.

2. About 40 bees stayed in the super after dark and didn't go home.

I don't know if they are starving and killing young? Maybe there are 2 queens in the bee tree and they are getting ready to swarm? Maybe there are 2 separate bee trees. I have no idea why so many didn't return to the hive at dark? Bizarre???

I opened the super and put a heat lamp on it. It's supposed to go down to 40 degrees, maybe a few will survive.


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## Marcus (May 13, 2012)

Do y'all have Africanized bees there yet? I'm asking because the balling up part is something I remember hearing that they do.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Marcus said:


> Do y'all have Africanized bees there yet? I'm asking because the balling up part is something I remember hearing that they do.


Thankfully no. These bees were relaxed with me, landing on me, crawling around. Not one made an aggressive move toward me. I didn't even bother with a bee hat.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Cotton said:


> Unless I can get to the queen easily I'll have to. But now I'm concerned something else is happening. Something strange is going on with these bees.
> 
> 1. Several times today I saw a couple dozen bees ball up and kill one or two.
> 
> ...


I'm going to bet you are hunting a swarm not a bee tree.


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## jeff47041 (Jan 5, 2013)

hashbrown said:


> I'm going to bet you are hunting a swarm not a bee tree.


That was my thought too. If a bunch of them stayed in the super, they might be looking for a new home.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

According to a botanist and 2 entomologists I know on FB… What I’m seeing is raiding behavior, robbing, getting all the goodies, why they are staying over night this late in the year. There are probably 2 wild hives involved, explains the killing behavior. 

Over the summer I’ve seen one or two bees drinking in this bowl on regular basis… August and September had lots of rain except for the last 3 weeks. A wild hive may have had a water source dry up, forced to come here. It’s why I’m seeing a dramatic increase in the numbers drinking water.

One could possibly be a new swarm… lots and lots of possibilities involved. Makes my head hurt!!!!

Short story… probably two wild hives involved, one far more remote than the other. Track down the closest one!!! What I intend to do!


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

My plan is working so far, got the super with the bee feeder into a little garden wagon. I moved it about 15ft from its previous location. They continue to find it, 100's of bees still coming to feed.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Yeah, feeding out in the open is the easiest way to start robbing behaviour, actual honey being the worst. I was going to say, but it might help you find them so... Still, they aren't attacking you which is interesting, if they are in a robbing mentality.

Good luck


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

always had a way with critters, they don’t see me as a threat. I can’t explain it, sometimes it’s as if they don’t even see me at all.

The bees were out in force today searching around the shop, sheds and house. They were searching the area thoroughly for other sources of food, inquisitive, not aggressive. There were easily 1000 bees here around 11am. 100’s were feeding but twice that many were searching. I don’t think it’s a swarm. It’s an established wild hive, a large one! What my cousin saw last spring was a swarm off this hive.

Another relative got in the “bee business” last year with 3 hives, added one wild swarm. He’s going to expand to 11 come spring. His grandson is a 4H’er, wants bees as a project.

Now that my dad’s peach business is officially over… I’m going to give the honey business another try. The good news, my relative, currently has a “one man” cabinet business. He has a full blown woodworking shop capable of mass producing all the hive parts needed to produce honey. He also buys grade 1 poplar wood from a wholesaler.

This winter I’m going down to help build all our supers/hives together. I’m going to purchase 5 nucs along with his 7 from a bee distributor we both know. If I can capture a few wild swarms next year? All the better, I should have 8-10 hives by the end of next summer. They are very little work, I grow clover for cattle anyway, plus hundreds of medicinal plant species that bloom. Each hive should produce about $300 in honey.

Anyway… that’s the plan!


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## Viking (Mar 16, 2009)

hashbrown said:


> If you find them are you going to leave them in the tree until spring?


The neighbor West of us has raised bees for many years and while he was in the process of moving household goods to their new home in Idaho I noticed a small swarm on a tree next to his hives, I told him when he came back for another load that I should have had him show me how to get a swarm into a hive, he told me not to worry about the fall swarms as that in his experience the late swarms have never survived for him and that he only does the summer swarms. This past year he has gotten about 20 swarms into hives. Funny thing is is that when he had taken all the hives to Idaho his daughter-in law told him that she had hundreds of bees visiting around their home afterwords. This area, in the coastal mountains of S.W. Oregon is great for wild bees, I've heard many swarms flying overhead in the years we've lived here, it's great for our gardens and fruit and nut trees to have so many bees around.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Viking said:


> he told me not to worry about the fall swarms as that in his experience the late swarms have never survived for him and that he only does the summer swarms.


For any potential bee keeper out there... It depends on where you live. Here in the deep south late swarms are viable. Mild winters, for the most part, and your willingness to feed them. If you have a 400 bee swarm they can make it if you take care of them. The workers will kill off most of the drones but still leave a viable hive.

It depends on where you live and what you are willing to do for them... Do your own local research, talk to local bee keepers and the county extension agent.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Ive kept bees since I was 13, I'm 47 now. I have never had luck in my climate with a fall swarm. I won't even hive up a swarm much past August 1st. I figured with your weather you had a lot better chance of wintering a new colony than I would here.


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## azbison (Jul 21, 2014)

I've got a wild hive in our new property, it's back in a corner of the pasture in an old hollow oak tree next to the pond. My plan was to leave them alone until spring and then start feeding them and luring them toward boxes.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

From the chair in the pic I finally choose a compass bearing of 282 degrees. That’s where most of the bees seemed to be flying. Just to the left of the notch in the far tree line. 

Using the compass I walked bout 400 yards in that direction. I found a little hollow full of gnarled chestnut oaks and a few old white oaks. I could hear individual bees flying around, sometimes see one but I couldn’t figure out which tree the hive was in. There was a breeze blowing through the leaves making to much noise. I’m confident that hive is there.

When a few more leaves fall I'll be able zero in on the hive. I put a feeder out when I get time.


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