It's Time to Set Out The Swarm Traps
Catching Feral Bees
Last month I posted about building swarm traps for ferrel bees. You can read about that here.
I am very fortunate to work out of a small airport in central Louisiana. We have a runway that is just less than a mile long with a parallel taxiway to service it. This requires a wide open area that the Parish/County maintains, in other words, mows regularly. The mowing isn't so often as to suppress the growth of wildflowers, rather it promotes their abundance.
At this time of year the ferrel bees abandon the feeders I supply for them and begin, in earnest, the pollination of these blossoms.
This is the perfect time to bait and set my swarm traps. This year I have seven to put out, I set two at home and the other five I planned to put at the airport.
This weekend I loaded all my traps and spent the morning setting them on the west side of the taxiway, with them facing east, just inside the tree line.
I know there are several wild hives in this area. There are over 1200 acres of wildflowers and blossoming trees for the insects to feed on.
I baited the boxes with waxed frames and lemon grass oil as described in the previous post.
With any luck I'll catch swarms starting in about two weeks and continuing into July.
Free bees and already acclimated to the local area! It's supposed to be an easy process. We shall see if I can fill theses new hives!
Cool! Did you see the article about Walmart making (filing a patent for?) "pollinator drones" aka robotic bees, presumably to have better control of our food supply. Instead of helping to save the dwindling population of bees who work for free, corporations are investing in fake bees that they can charge for.
So glad and inspired that local farmers like you are helping existing feral bees to a mutually beneficial relationship.
Robotic bees????? I think there's a story right there! Here's some trivia for you......did you know that bees are actually an invasive specie to the Americas....yep......nary a one was here before the Europeans can over. Earthworms too! All truly American crops like corn (wind pollinated) and squash (bumble bee pollinated) and potatoes and muscadines.......none of those depend on the honey bee for pollination......I'm thinking they benefit but would survive without the bee.... but so much of our food supply depends on the European honey bee that it's absence would be devastating.
I did not know that bees are not native to the Americas! How interesting. I live in Washington State and our fruit orchards have been feeling the effects of our declining bee population. One man started a company where I pick up Mason bees in the spring and return them greatly multiplied. He then supplies our orchard owners with bees for pollination. It's just my small part to play in assisting. The Mason bees are fun to watch and they don't sting.
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Thanks for the informative post. The entire thread was educational.
Thank you so much @witchazel! Yep.....there are a whole lot of species here that shouldn't be. We are starting to get cogongrass down here in Louisiana. That's a nasty pest that chokes out everything around it! And the fire ant! Nasty rascals those! But the honey bee.....I don't think they harm a thing. I think more people should get involved raising them!
Thanks for the comment and the follow! Welcome to Steemit!
No i didnt know that. I also dont know what a muscadine is so idk that i would eat one. But i think thats your point!
Ha! As you should suspect I have a blog for that! It is an American grape....native to the east coast and the south...doesn't care much for snow so you probably haven't seen any there.
Ok im back from reading about your muscadines. Talk about a perfect setup!
So theyre like louisiana muscat. Finicky but delicious! Used to live next to a white grape vineyard in Napa Valley and got to nibble on a few here and there. I dont know what was better: relishing the refreshing sweetness and the "pop", or the cachet of saying "I live next door to a vineyard in Napa Valley".
The latter for sure!
Good luck you just need one swarm to split in a couple of months. We bought one nuc two years ago and now have three hives.
Thanks for the good luck! I know where to get some nucs if this method fails but I've heard good reports about the success rate. I should find a big time bee keeper and set some traps nearby! HA!
Sounds like "honey" in the future! Good luck catching the bees!
All those high carbs....and me on a diet too!!! Oh, well!
That's cool stuff, did you build the hives ?
Hey hey! My man @jerryt! Yeah, I built those with the external handles......I'm trying to figure out a jig to make those inset handles safely. I bought the others as kits from a farm supply that resells for Mann-Lake.
beetles and flowers nice post.
Beetles? I don't want no stinking BEETLES! Spell checker is a bee-ach ain't it?