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Attracting Wild Hives - Best Practices?
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Posted by laylaa 7b (My Page) on Fri, Oct 16, 09 at 7:33
| I am trying very hard to attract a wild hive to my property and and would like to know if anyone here has any tips. I've done extensive (lots and lots) research on bee food source plants, and have planted like crazy for bees. My planting has been calculated to have something in bloom at all times which is bee friendly. Even December since we get warm periods and bees come out. I've only been counting larger scale native trees and shrubs in my plan to insure large food sources. Perennials and annuals are an extra bonus I don't count.
Anyhow, we have lots of woods, downed and hollow trees, etc, house should be sealed, but I am unclear exactly what a wild bees look for to build a hive in. Is there any structure I should put up, or any habitat I should take care to create for the actual building of a hive? I am not interested in getting into official bee keeping for several reasons, but if I can make the area more bee friendly aside from plants, please advise. |
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RE: Attracting Wild Hives - Best Practices?
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IMO, it's hard to anticipate where feral bees would establish a hive. Here, it is wooded, so dead trees or voids in live ones sometimes get bees. In a suburban area they often get into stud walls in houses. Holes around 5/16" are ideal access routes, as are old carpenter bee holes.
If you're not going to KEEP bees, it seems you're already doing the best thing, although large area mono blossoms give better results than single plantings- a patch of buckwheat never fails to attract bees, though I have seen them bypass it if some other nectar source is "hot" during honey flow. |
RE: Attracting Wild Hives - Best Practices?
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| Thank you for the reply, I think I have quality habitat but want to make sure I am covering everything. There is water as well. We just don't have many honey bees at all, it's sad. I've seen very few. In spring I saw a few then as summer went on it dwindled to nothing. Yesterday a group of 15' tall, single flower, massively blooming camellia was covered in yellow jackets only. I didn't see another species of bee and I checked often. All my plantings are en mass, huge shrubs of the 20' variety, trees and if something came in a double or single petal flower I used single. Thanks for the warning on carpenter bee holes! Better double check that over the winter. I'll let you know how next year goes when bees are active! |
RE: Attracting Wild Hives - Best Practices?
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| I'm just learning about beekeeping myself, so I'm no expert, but I was planning on luring a swarm with these items I found at Glory Bee Foods: swarm traditionalp: http://www.glorybeefoods.com/gbf/Shop_ProductDetail.cfm?PC=3&PSC=&P=20249&Product_Name=swarm%20traditionalp=71.229.150.229:(ts_2009-10-18_19:36:26)-401232 swarm lure http://www.glorybeefoods.com/gbf/Shop_ProductDetail.cfm?PC=3&PSC=&P=20250&Product_Name=swarm%20lure&Token=71.229.150.229:(ts_2009-10-18_19:36:26)-401232 Unless you provide a good, permanent place I don't think this little "hive" will keep them there. |
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