A terrace, BC, Apicultor found himself in a nightmare situation at the end of last month when “thousands and thousands of bees” filled their store.
Call it an attempt to rob: the bees tried to steal sweet and sweet honey.
Christine McDonald, owner of the rushing River apiaries, said it is the first time that desperate “hillside bees”, bees trying to get honey out of the hive from another colony, have descended to their inner store to look for food as the scorporas resources at the end of the summer.
While working with the bees for years and said he feels very comfortable with them, this situation scared her.
“I think it’s the most panic I’ve felt … there are thousands of bees, I don’t know where they come from, and I need to protect all honey.”
The mass bees had arrived through cracks at the door of the oldest bay in the store.
When a bee finds a good source of food, he returns to the hive and makes a “rotation dance” to tell other bees where the food is, McDonald said.
After throwing tarps and tapas on the equipment and products, and managing to save most, McDonald said he ended up “sacrificing his bath” to catch the invasive bees: he left the light on and attracted the bees to the light where he could pick them up and then release them.
But it took four or five days when the bees stopped trying to return.
“I think they have learned that, no, there is no more food here. We can’t enter.”
Since then, McDonald has recorded the store door.
He said that although before the thieves are attacked their hives, it is the first time they found their interior store.
“Autumn beekeeping is very intense: trying to help bees to bequeathed against other bees and wasps and keep the food stores for which they have worked so hard.”
The so -called slope bees are a fairly common phenomenon at the end of summer and early fall.
Alison McAfee, associate of research at the University of BC and the scientist of Honeybee, said that when there are fewer food resources, such as nectar producing flowers, and the bees population is close to its peak, some colonies of collection can invade weaker colonies to steal their food.
“It is almost as if they had a level of despair, something like the way you can think of the bears that have a little despair trying to gain weight for winter,” McAfee said.
She said waspas can also attack bees, but for slightly different reasons. The wasps eat a sugary substance secreted from their own larvae at the beginning of the season, but in autumn, there are fewer larvae and more adult wasps.
“They do not receive that sweet gift from their babies, essentially, so they are especially motivated to get something sweet from other places, because adults really like to eat sugary things, and there are many sugary things inside a bees colony.”
But wasps are not the only bees murderer.
Mcafee said a bees colony can die of thieves, if it is too weak to defend himself.
“We have a bad opinion of the wasps,” he said. “We are like,” Oh, those wasps, are attacking our honey bees colonies, are killing my bees. ‘But then many times, in reality, bees will also kill our bees. “
McDonald has once again produced honey after a few days of cleanliness.
She said that bees seem more desperate this year than in the past, and thought it could be due to extended heat, since it still feels like a summer.
McDonald encouraged other beekeepers to keep their bees well fed, so they do not feel the need to steal other hives.
