Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Day #302 Africanized Bees


We had a bee club meeting Tuesday evening, and the speaker was talking about Africanized honey bees.

Very interesting. He gave us a lot of pointers about how to lessen the chances of our hives getting invaded by Africanized bees.
1.       Don’t collect wild swarms (since they are more likely to be Africanized)
2.      Be sure your queens are marked, so you’ll know whether or not a wild queen gets into your hive. If she does, you’ll have to – gulp – squash her.
3.      Prevent swarms from your own hives

What to do if you run into Africanized bees and they start to run after you:
1.       Keep a garden sprayer of soapy water handy
2.      Run like crazy. The farther you run, the less likely they are to follow you.
3.      Get inside something – a house, a car – and close the door as fast as you can
4.      Use the sprayer! Soapy water kills bees. Don't worry if the inside of your car gets wet.
5.    Teach your children/spouse/friends these same rules
 

Then, he gave us a lot of pointers about how to BEE Friendly with our neighbors.
1.       Keep hives away from property lines
2.    Give the neighbors HONEY !
3.      Build a tall barrier around the hives so the bees have to fly up and over (that way they won’t zoom across the neighbor’s backyard grill)
4.    Give the neighbors HONEY ! !
5.      Give your bees a nearby water source (like my leaky rain barrel) so they won’t fly into the neighbor’s swimming pool – that is NOT a problem in my pool-less neighborhood!
6.      Give the neighbors HONEY ! ! ! ! !
7.   Fence your yard
8.   Give the neighbors ... HONEY ! ! ! ! ! ! !



BEEattitude for Day # 302:
       Blessed are those who those who treat wild bees with respect, for they shall live (relatively) sting-free.
 

_______________________________ 
The teeny details:
my books:  http://www.franstewart.com Please buy them from an independent bookstore or directly from my website.
my eBooks for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart
my eBooks on Smashwords (for all other formats):  http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Fran+Stewart

No comments: