Is there a market here in the area for..

[Wilma]

My thoughts on the African killer bees?  They can all go back to Africa.

[srkruzich]

I have seen one report that says the so called "killer bees" from Africa [at least their acestors were] are in Oklahoma and in one case a couple counties from the southern Kansas border.

Another report shows those bees are not yet out of Texas.


What are your thoughts on these guys?

Well first of all the term killer bees is a very inaccurate title for them.  Their no more killer than any other bee.
What they are is protective of their hives.  While italians or carnolians will ignore you while you work with the hive, the AHB will defend its hive.  These type of bees are ones you must work with in suits and veils.  Their very hardy and produce honey like you wouldn't believe.  The truth is it might be AHB's that save us in all reality if they don't get a handle on CCD.  BUT you can control them.  Its not hard.  Essentially you just requeen every year and they can't breed so your hives aren't AHB hives.

The defense against AHB's, as with any hive that is on defensive is to walk away.  You have to go farther with the AHBS than you have to with any other but getting out of their defense zone will get them off of you.

They are working with them to try and breed out some of the agressivness.  Eventually that dominant gene can be weeded out.   But your looking at many years of research down the road.

What you have to watch are the feral bees.  They will breed with the AHBs when the queens superscede and make virgin queens. The virgin queens then take off on their maiden flight and they breed with the AHB drones.  That is how they grow and spread. By killing off the queen and killing off queen cells out of your hive or AI'ing your virgin queens you can eliminate that happenign since queens only breed once.

[W. Gray]

You are really "up" on bees.

I would imagine if there were not a local market for honey before you started this thread, you have already made a market from the folks here on the forum.

[srkruzich]

You are really "up" on bees.

I would imagine if there were not a local market for honey before you started this thread, you have already made a market from the folks here on the forum.

Hi
I can assure you and everyone else, that You can never know enough about bees.    I am ALWAYS learning something new about them. 

DId yall know that bees Dance?? 
And bees communicate by dancing??   They fly up to 3 mile radius of the hive.  One thing i have been studying is saturation levels for areas i will put my hives.  You can oversaturate the area and your bee population will start to decline. 

I Love watching bees and have spent hours at a time just watching a hive before.  When you walk up to a very busy hive, you can stand to the side of the entrance and look outwards. You will see bees flying in and landing and taking off. It looks like a busy airport!  I love to walk out in the glide path for the bees.   ITs kool to feel them whizzing by and all, and they don't hit you either.  Their awesome pilots lol.

When you walk up to a hive entrance theres a platform they land on.  You can put your finger on the platform and several Guard bees will run out and check your finger out.  They sniff it and once satisfied that its not another bee from another colony or a yellow jacket or other enemy they will return to their guard positions inside the entrance. 

I work without veils and bee suits, and most of the time in a pair of shorts and t-shirt when i go into the hives.  They get to know the keeper and they don't worry about the people that work with them.   

No i am no expert on bees trust me but I love working with them and They teach me all the time new things. 
One thing i hope to get into this year is catching swarms. IF folks have a swarm on their place i'll come get them.

I bought 4 nucs of bees, 1 nuc (nucleus) of bees contains about 9-10,000 bees in it plus a queen  and 3 combs of larvae and 1 of drone and pollen and 1 of honey.  That will give me 40,000 bees to start with and 4 queens.
Theres 43,208 cells to a frame and the queen lays 2000 eggs a day if i remember right. So those 3 frames per hive will produce 129624 bees if every one live.  you can get a really strong hive quick.  It takes 21 days for the bee to hatch out of the cell. 

Its really interesting.  Lots of things that you learn as you go on with them.  One little trivia bit is that worker bees lay out the comb in the frame.  They don't fully extract the comb.  They only give like about 4 mm i think of the cell and move on.  The queen comes along when its ready and lays a egg, then checks to see if it is positioned correctly in the center of the cell then moves on to the next cell.  The worker bees then come along and start filling the cell with food and extracting the comb out further along.  I think its final size is usually around 1/2" or so and then they cap it off.  the brood feeds on the food and then when its ready in 21 days hatch out.

[Teresa]

wow..... That is so interesting. I love hearing you tell about them .. Almost like I am there with you. 

Thanks...