Tim said:
As far as the "putting out poisoned honey" threat by the vineyard
owner, isn't that highly illegal?

I doubt it. Even a pan with a inch of honey will trap thousands of bees.

A northern beekeeper lost many bees to poison traps set by a beekeeper
outside his honey house in Texas about three years ago.

 Seems my friend set his holding yard ( 900 hives) close ( quarter mile) to
the other beekeepers honey house without knowing the honey house was in the
area.

When my friend drove up to the other beekeepers house looking for the source
of the problem he saw traps filled with dead bees.

The other beekeeper said robbing was bad at his location and was not sure
where all the bees were coming from so set the traps.
The Texas beekeeper said he was surprised bees were making the flight home
to die as poison was in the honey. Dead bees at the front of hives showed
the only clues a problem was going on.

The issue was resolved without violence and the beekeepers actually became
friends.

The Northern beekeeper was told there were no other hives in the area which
was true. The Southern beekeeper did not keep hives at his extracting
location on purpose but did keep full supers of honey (which were cleaned
out by the northern bees ) .

. I was actually in Texas (with a load of bees)  right after the problem
happened and the northern beekeeper introduced me to the Texas beekeeper.
They seemed like old lifetime friends. In fact the forklift of the northern
beekeeper was being kept at the Texas beekeepers place for him to use while
the northern beekeeper was back up north. No talk of the incident happened
while at the meeting and I knew better than bring the subject up!

I had to chuckle at the Texas beekeeper as the outside temperature was
around 55F. and he acted like he was freezing to death. Heavy  Coveralls ,
hooded sweatshirt  and ear muffs while we were in short sleeve shirts. Thin
blood I guess as we had left freezing in temps in the Midwest and snow and
ice.

Bob

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