I have had some more interesting experiences with apis dorsata in the
Philippines this year.  Of note is the fact that I have twice
harvested the honey head of the colony without having the colony
abscond.  Both times I used smoke very sparingly and just moved the
bees off the honey.  The major honey flow will be starting soon, so
harvests were not large, but in one case after a week, the bees
appeared to have more than completely replaced the cut comb.

In the major harvest, after the narra tree honeyflow and before the
bees do their migration off the comb for the rainy season the honey
hunters will take the complete nest using lots rof smoke and feast on
brood and pollen as well as taking the honey.  None of the honey
hunters on four islands I have visited now knows where the bees go for
the rainy season.   I was told island that in Batanes they believe a
legend that the bees all go to a cave to wait it out.  But the fact
that all the hunters, who are quite skilled at finding nests from
small signs such as the droppings and beelining do not know where they
go, and agree that they see no signs of them is intriguing.
Especially, since the island I am on now, Camiguin Norte in the
Babuyan Islands is maybe a 100 km from the mainland.  Three of the
islands in the group (they are far dispersed) have apis dorsata, and
they are absent from the two furthest from the mainland.  But they are
found again further north in the Batanes group of islands.

So, I cannot search archives with the painfully slow and expensive
satellite internet connection here.  From my recollection of the
discussion on tagging bees and beehives, the little RFID tags are only
useful for a small distance and sort of bounce back the signal.  Maybe
not so good a system in the rainforest. Any ideas on a useful tool for
finding where the bees go in the rainy season?  They might be just
sitting in out broodless, and possibly even combless.  Some dorsata
are known to do that for a time.

Stan

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