Well we had a pretty tough day today as we had my grandfather’s funeral. I got home and was wondering around the garden and saw some suspicious sighs on the outside of my carbonara hive. I decided to put on my new oz armour mesh suit and have a look to see if I had lost the hive to grubs or what was going on. Upon opening the hive I was shocked to see it solid with brood but it was the wrong pattern of brood. About 8 months ago there was a swarm fight and it seems it has been taken over with what appears to be hockinsi. Ended up splitting them as a part chunk of brood had come away with the lid.
I then checked another hive that was split last year and tbey are very strong and will be ready to split in a month or so. So i willl put an empty box in front of them and make them go through it which will make them start filling it with stores ready for a split.
Well done Brett, apparently if you do the piggyback method of splitting, put some brood in the empty box, that will encourage them to populate that box much quicker. I was told you can get a second colony going within 3 months.
Nice photos, certainly shows the difference between the species.
Nice photos. All our natives are slow this season for the same reason as the European bees. We have only split 2 of 6 so far. The super on 1 is not even being used they just sealed it off.
So the bottom pic is carbonaria right and you say it was taken over by hockingsi in top pic?
Thanks
Hi Brett, I have a new strategy for keeping the viewing window completely dark, which should prevent the bees from blocking it from view. I have a flush roof. I bought a roll of black duct tape. It’s fairly wide, I just wrap the duct tape around the join which will remain until I want to take a look or show someone. After that I just re-tape it. I should get over 20 wraps per role.
I did a 3 way split for a lady the other day. She took one split home, I have the other 2 here. I spotted the queen in one of the splits the other day. Anyway, I took a look with a torch today. Guess what I spotted besides a phorid fly inside. A SHB glued to the floor with resin I dare say the phorid fly will suffer the same fate if it sits still long enough.
thats really interesting Jeff, I have got both mine taped mainly to keep the phorid fly away as there horrific here. will be really good if they stop covering the viewing lid though.
They are amazing little bees. They could make an interesting documentary on them. That sticky resin they use, they bring that back on their pollen legs. They can walk all over it without getting stuck. The other day one walked on the sticky side of masking tape, no problems at all.
Yesterday after I spotted the hive beetle stuck to the floor of one hive, I spotted a second hive beetle outside the second hive with a native bees wrestling with it & she wasn’t giving up
I dare say the phorid fly will suffer the same fate if it sits still long enough.