Hey Jerry, have any spring over there yet?

On Sat, 30 Mar 2002 15:17:59 -0700 Jerry J Bromenshenk writes:

> So, bottom line, the plastic cones may seem to "work" inside the  hive,
but
> our observations indicated that they are very inefficient.

Have you, or others, any experience using clear flexible plastic tubing
as an escape mechanism on such items as pollen traps? What I'm thinking
about here, would have the tubing extend some distance (1-6 in.) past the
outer surface of the trap. I wondered if the bees, having exited the trap
via the tubing, and returning, would attempt to enter the "apparent"
opening in the wooden trap, and not realize they had actually exited from
the "actual" entrance, some inches away. Similar to yellow jackets in
y.j. traps, ignore the opening to freedom, thinking they can escape
through the clear sides of the container.

> With respect to bee size, the strangest thing that ever happened to us
was
> when we used a perforated plastic pollen screen in MT for several
weeks;
> then moved everything to MD (in August).  We packed up the research
hives
> and bees, drove them to Maryland, set them out, put on the pollen
> screens, and found that the bees couldn't get through the holes.  Same
hives,
> bees, and screens, 4 days apart.  Screens worked in MT, didn't in MD?
I
> still have no explanation.  Its as if they swelled up during the trip,
like a
> passenger's feet on a long airplane trip.

That is interesting. I would think just the opposite could possibly
occur, and the little hummers would slip right through, pollen and all.
If you've ever emptied a soft sided (soda) water bottle while hiking one
of our near by mountains, and upon returning home to a much lower
altitude, you find out the thing looks like someone ran over it with
their rig. Ergo the bees would have looked like flying raisins! Nope,
musta' been all those stops for junk food along the way. All kidding
aside, did the bees ever "acclimate" and after a period of adjustment,
once again traverse the screens? If you had suspected such a thing would
have happened, it would have been interesting to note if they did just
"swell" or if the actually gained weight.

Thanks for the cone escape ideas.

Ed Heinlein
Helena, MT