To check if honey bees are in an area ??

[Kate Atchley]

Here in the Ardnamurchan we are keen to set up an Amm apiary.

Our preferred site has no known managed honey bees within 5 miles or more. But how best to check if there are wild bees ... unless, that is, we see them foraging. That's a long shot as none of us local beekeepers live there.

If I put in mating hives surely the queens may simply fly their maximum (maybe 16 km or so) to find a mate and we are none the wiser about their immediate environment. But bait hives, yes certainly.

Any other suggestions?

Kate

[The Drone Ranger]

You could spread several margarine containers around the area with a block of apifonda or similar in them.
Any foraging bees that find them tell their mates
If there are bees in the area they polish off the free food
Usually there will be a feeding frenzy
Almost certainly they leave some dead ones behind
So after a suitable period of weather when bees can fly have a check for dead bees in the containers
If you find them cut their little carnie wings off and scan them

[Kate Atchley]

Thanks Drone Ranger. Good idea. I'll have a go at this but will need to find a way to protect the candy from the pinemartens (bolt it down?!).

Kate

[Jimbo]

I made honey traps by placing containers with some old honey in them to attract bees. At one of the sites there was some activity so I collected a sample and did wing morphometry. As it turned out the sample was a good Amm one and I later tracked down the beekeeper who had moved colonies within 2 miles of my proposed mating site. As suggested increase the drone population at your intended site.

[Jon]

Maximizing the number of drones in your own colonies is probably the best strategy as it is something you have direct control over.
A lot of beekeepers cull drone brood and the majority will have no drone foundation in their colonies.
If you get 10 colonies at a mating site it is possible that each could have several thousand drones so you will skew the odds of getting the matings you want in your favour.

Queens won't fly 16k although drones might. Queens don't fly more than a mile or two as far as I know.
I have found that a lot of my queens mate in the apiary itself which makes it even more important to pack it out with your own drones.

Are you in a varroa area? if so the number of feral colonies is likely to be limited.

[Kate Atchley]

Thanks Jon.

Maximising of drone population may be what we'll find ourselves doing (anyway) but I hesitate to adopt that strategy alone, without first checking to see if we can be more certainty about what's there on the ground.

We have no varroa here. Some local feral colonies are known to have been around for years.

Kate

[The Drone Ranger]

Thanks Drone Ranger. Good idea. I'll have a go at this but will need to find a way to protect the candy from the pinemartens (bolt it down?!).



Kate

Wasn't that "Fat Boy Slim" Norman Cook one of the Pinemartens or was that housemartins ??.......

There might be fantastic drones there already certainly seems isolated enough
Could just stick an empty hive with some drawn comb up there and have look see who is visiting/ nosing around on a warmish day.

[Kate Atchley]

Sorry ... The Housemartins ... about as cute but nothing like as vicious as pinemartens!
Yer ... was thinking of some bait hives with an old brood frame + a little stores ... to see what can be seen.
Kate

[The Drone Ranger]

Sorry ... The Housemartins ... about as cute but nothing like as vicious as pinemartens!
Yer ... was thinking of some bait hives with an old brood frame + a little stores ... to see what can be seen.
Kate

There is a possibility that you might find some real AMM will turn up in your bait hive and they might be better breeding material than you have at the moment.
I agree wholeheartedly with your cautious approach and not flooding the area with outsider drones etc
Probably don't need stores in the bait hives I think the smell of used brood comb would be enough draw them in

Plan 2 could be just take a couple of apideas with unmated queens up there and see if they get mated or not

I hope the Pinemartens don't attack the bait hives next
I've always fancied a Davy Crockett hat if they do.

[wee willy]

Can't you encourage drone production in selected hives? This would increase the odds of the queens mating with the desired drones .
Drone foundation has uses other than for culling frames!
VM


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