All I have to say........................

[gmjunkie]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[85vette]

....and if you get 'em backwards that's OK too.....

 

[Rich Z]

Junk, I'm looking at your avatar and thinking, "What did he do to that girl to make her slap him on the side of his head so hard?"

 

[gmjunkie]

Junk, I'm looking at your avatar and thinking, "What did he do to that girl to make her slap him on the side of his head so hard?"

I was walking across my Apiary and 4-5 Honey Bees and a Japanese Hornet were doing battle and flew under my glasses!:banghead:
The Honey Bees didn't sting me,But the Hornet chewed the hell out of me!:banghead::banghead::banghead:

Hornets were really bad this year,They invaded,completely destroyed and killed 1 hive this summer!:nonod:

I built 6 traps and drowned most of them though!:hehehe:

I still captured 4 swarms and split 2 hives so I'm still up 5 hives from where I started in the spring and got 339 lbs of the best "Sourwood Honey" I've ever tasted out of 2 hives! :thumbsup:

If they all make it till spring and luck is with me,I'll probly get 7 or 8 times that next August!

 

[85vette]

Those little devils are potent! That's a lot of honey!

 

[Rich Z]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that.

Connie was talking about setting up her own apiary a while back, but that was before she got stung by a yellow jacket and then changed her tune about bees in general. She won't purposely hurt a honey bee, but she's not going to get overly friendly with them neither.

We've always had a problem with yellow jackets around here but this year wasn't too bad. We saw some flying around while we were clearing some underbrush, so I put out a bunch of traps. Caught a LOT of them in just a few days, and now we haven't seen any at all.

Things like paper wasps and such we really don't worry about as they don't seem to be very aggressive and tend to take care of some of the caterpillars in Connie's garden. Yellow jackets, though, can be real bitches. We had a nest near the carport a couple of years ago that were extremely aggressive. Nailed the FedEx girl during a delivery, and I had three of them on my legs just walking past them to the house. I got rid of that gene pool damned quick!

 

[gmjunkie]

Honey bees if you are around them allot will get used to you!:thumbsup:
We hardly ever get stung by our honey bees,other people do if they get to close to the hive,I pull the tops off and have a look see all the time without a suite on,But I sure as heck wouldn't try to rob them without one!!:thumbsup:

I have 1 cat that helps me,she don't get stung ever!

 

[gmjunkie]

Those little devils are potent! That's a lot of honey!

Have you ever heard the term "Busy as a Bee"?

 

[Rich Z]

Heck, we have a lot of bears running around here, so I could see where this would become a real problem for us. Not just cleaning up the mess after a bear raid, but dealing with a bunch of pissed off bees who wouldn't know we weren't the raiders.

 

[85vette]

All the bee keepers down here use solar powered electric fence chargers around the hives.

 

[gmjunkie]

All the bee keepers down here use solar powered electric fence chargers around the hives.

Yeah,Allot of Bee Keepers here use one too!:thumbsup:

I live at the edge of the Pisgah Natl Forest less than 200 ft from the bear sanctuary,Never had 1 problem with Bears yet,Probly because my hives are less than 50 ft from the house!:thumbsup:

 

[Rich Z]

Heck, the bears around here don't seem to care about how close they are to houses....



That bird feeder is almost close enough to touch reaching out of our bedroom window.