Bob said:
>Have they seen absconding swarms in CCD yards...?
What's at issue, there are few reports of anyone seeing bees leaving CCD
hives. We have a report from a squatter/homeless guy in CA who one day saw bees
hanging on vegetation, being blown about in rivulets on sides of roads near
a big stockpile yard that experienced CCD. We have a few reports of unusual
swarming in CA hives in yards with CCD.
Considering all of the depopulated colonies across the U.S., and reports of
losses playing out in a couple of weeks, in one case 2-3 days -- seems like
more people would have seen bees leaving.
> a lack of robbing by other bees or a
reluctance by wax moths or SHBs to enter the abondoned hives?
I would bet
money if I tossed a CCD deadout box full of honey out in one of my yards on
a day no plants are blooming the box would get robbed.
That's a bet I'd like to take -- I'd make money. We've CCD deadouts in CA,
Fl, and TX where yards full of strong colonies (some were stockpile yards
with hundreds of colonies) did not rob out CCD colonies less than 400 yards
away. In TX, the beekeeper had lots of honey, so he took the lids off the
hives, pulled up a honey frame, and left them open for two weeks in sunny, warm
weather. NADA, no bees at all.
In CA, three large stockpile yards in same field. One was in good shape,
one failing, and the other failed. No robbing of the failed boxes, even though
they had 30-40 pounds of honey. The few colonies that failed in the strong
yard were robbed instantly.
I revisted the failed yard about a month later, bees were finally robbing
the stacks of deadouts.
In FL, CCD colonies had no beetles or wax moth. The few strong colonies in
the CCD yards, and strong colonies in nearby apialries (200 yards) had hive
beetles - so much so that the pollen subs were moving masses. Same pollen sub
in CCD colonies were untouched.
In the most recent cases of failing colonies, with lots of forage, robbing
was occurring, but only after someone opened up the weak/deadout colonies, and
even then, we did not see the aggressive robbing that Bob would expect.
So, there may be a seasonal component to the robbing issue.
Jerry
I also can not see what could possibly be in those deadouts which would
prevent the SHB from entering for the pollen ( maybe could be used to repel
SHB?)but what do I know as only a beekeeper. I can believe that the hives
around the CCD apiary were busy working a floral source to rob or maybe even
too weak but the hypothesis some unknown thing in the CCD deadout prevented
the robbing, wax moth or SHB from entering is tough for me to believe.
bob
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