There's about 200 wasps outside my house going bonkers

[Cocolapew]

Send help.

All bees are fairly feral - they look after themselves a lot of the time and while you can try to affect what they do in a hive they have a (hive)mind of their own. A swarm from a hive can end up moving into a tree trunk and vice versa. Though varroa mites have taken a real toll on wild colonies and there aren't as many as there used to be.

Our collection wasn't anything like I imagined it would be. Once the beekeeper was suited up and had all his equipment ready he literally shook the branch the bees were on and they went apeshit. I was sitting watching about 10ft away and thought WHOA!! He did that about three times until he had the queen on the white sheet as the bees kept returning to the branch while she was still on it. It took about an hour or so until they'd all calmed down and he got them in the box (they wanted to get in the dark away from the brilliance of the white sheet). He chatted to me while waiting for them to calm down and I learnt so much. Definitely something to experience.

I have a feeling you would all appreciate The Bee Bush Man

What a relaxing video UnaOfStormhold thanks for posting.

@SuperlativeScrubs Thank you! off down the hive.......

10,000 bees!!
That was great he was so interesting, I'm now a bee expert
The were black bees, honey bees local to us.
The best fact was that drones congregate 40 metres in the air, thousands of them. Then the queen flies through them and mates as she flies along and he said you can hear a crack and that's the drones exploding.
He said they have definitely come from another hive near us.

.

Best thread ever!!

This is just utterly bonkers and brilliant. I’ve learned something today!

@CoveredInBeeeees

Feels like an apt time to post.

Watch out first stop a swarm, next stop you will become a bona fide beekeeper!

I speak from experience, had no interest in bees until a swarm landed in my tree. Called a local beekeeper to collect them and was fascinated by the whole thing, he lent me a book on bees. One year on that local beekeeper is now my mentor and I now have my own bees!

"Drones" of course being male bees. I'm sure lots of people now think of remote-controlled flying machines when they hear the word!

I second the "best thread ever" vote. Very interesting, and of course I want my own bee adventure (but wasps can FRO).

Thank you, OP! fascinating creatures.

True about drones, wanderings we don't want the man made drones exploding over our heads!

Beekeeper here. We call swarms 'freebees'.

Bees are quite valuable and a colony can cost £200 which is why beekeepers turn up so willingly and quickly. Next year if they settle and do well over the winter then they could produce 20kg+ honey.

freebees

Freebees 😄
I'm trying to think of things he told me.

• If bees die out the world will only last 3 more years without them.
• The scout bees were out looking for a new place, when they get back to the swarm the position they land tells the others what direction to go and they wiggle as well, the amount of wiggles tell them how many kilometres to fly.

• The queen makes a peep and the virgin queens hear this and quack (😄) back. The queen then goes and stings them and they die 😕

Such a lot to find out! amazing!

Oh and 70% of beekeepers are women.

I wonder why that is? Maybe bees prefer women around for some reason?

Wow that's so interesting re bees.

Loving this thread.

Especially think some of our male species would live to fly through and mate.

I remember a few trying it in my nightclub days

20kg honey?!

The scout bees were out looking for a new place, when they get back to the swarm the position they land tells the others what direction to go and they wiggle as well, the amount of wiggles tell them how many kilometres to fly.

My sat nav app looks shit now. This is mad.

Itsgettingweird bees have an internal penis that explodes out of their bodies when they ejaculate, killing them. Might not actually be that appealing...

Our local beekeeping association is mostly male but there is a good assortment of women around.

He said drones are like the old fighter squadrons, fly out for a sortie, come back, put their feet up and have a fag and then fly out again 😂.
They had already started to make wax on the branch they were on.
Apparently the area where I live is called swarm central because there's so many .
He was raging about farmers where he lives, they are dairy farmers and refuse to leave a small strip of land unploughed so it grows wild.
I don't cut my grass often because I like the wild flowers and weeds for the bees so I was star pupil {smug} clover is very good for honey bees.