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Urban honey


gfweb

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Yeah, they're relatively docile most of the time—but wander near a beehive (or an apiary of 25 to 35 hives) the day after a skunk or the like has scratched at the entrance of the hive overnight and it can/will/may lead to an eye-opening experience. shock2.gif

I've experienced issues like that many times when I was beekeeping heavily! 

Edited by DiggingDogFarm (log)

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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Do wasps and yellow-jackets also make honey? (I'm trying to learn the differences.) You're right, I always considered them to be bees, or a type of bee. A bit off-topic, but did you see the Sherlock Holmes movie with Ian McKellan? A large part of the plot revolves around this very issue. (Holmes is a beekeeper.)

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36 minutes ago, Nyleve Baar said:

I keep bees myself and there is a LOT of misunderstanding about these creatures. First of all, most people can't distinguish between bees and everything else that flies around - like wasps and yellowjackets. It's almost always a wasp or a yellowjacket that is the culprit when someone gets stung, yet everyone says they were stung by a bee! My honeybees are reasonably docile and can't be bothered to sting unless provoked. Yellowjackets and ground hornets will sting for no damn reason at all - you're just walking past and boom! Last year I got badly attacked by ground hornets just because I walked past their hole. On the other hand, I might get no more than one or two stings a year from my own bees, and I'm right in their hive messing with their stuff. They have work to do and unless you get them upset, they mind their own business.

 

Urban bees are not a menace to anyone. They forage in gardens and park spaces and are important for the ecosystem. You'd be surprised at how much there is for a bee to do even in a city environment - look around and you'll see all kinds of flowering stuff everywhere. I don't know what the local by-laws are, but many municipalities do permit beehives on private property as long as they're situated a certain distance from the property line. If anyone gets stung, I imagine it would be a difficult thing to prove where, exactly, that creature came from - a domestic hive or a wild colony. And as I said, most of the time it would have been something other than a bee anyway.

We have a little black bee here that doesn't sting at all, it can't. I have been told that it is one of the major pollinators of the mango crops.

Edited by Tropicalsenior
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27 minutes ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

Yeah, they're relatively docile most of the time—but wonder near a beehive (or an apiary of 25 to 35 hives) the day after a skunk or the like has scratched at the entrance of the hive overnight and it can/will/may lead to an eye-opening experience. shock2.gif

I've experienced issues like that many times when I was beekeeping heavily! 

 

Oh I can imagine! My husband got attacked by my bees when he disregarded my warnings against mowing the grass near the hive. The grass got flung up against the side and the bees came roaring out! He has never done that again.

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Just now, Nyleve Baar said:

 

Oh I can imagine! My husband got attacked by my bees when he disregarded my warnings against mowing the grass near the hive. The grass got flung up against the side and the bees came roaring out! He has never done that again.

 

Yep!!!! That'll definitely do it too!!! :laugh:

 

~Martin :)

I just don't want to look back and think "I could have eaten that."

Unsupervised, rebellious, radical agrarian experimenter, minimalist penny-pincher, and adventurous cook. Crotchety, cantankerous, terse curmudgeon, non-conformist, and contrarian who questions everything!

The best thing about a vegetable garden is all the meat you can hunt and trap out of it!

 

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My local honey producer of choice is an urban business.  Shadow Mountain Honey  I love their honey, it has an almost spicyness I find.  As for disturbing the bees I have  found that when I am watering in the garden, especially the mint bed, that the bees don't care.  I guess they think it is raining.  Same with the butterflys and other flying insects including wasps.  I don't bother them and they don't bother me.  

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3 hours ago, cakewalk said:

Do wasps and yellow-jackets also make honey? (I'm trying to learn the differences.)

From what I understand they don't make honey. Bees store up the honey in order to survive the winter as a colony, albeit reduced in size. Wasps and yellow jackets don't overwinter. The only one that survives the winter is the queen - I assume she hibernates or something. Yellow jackets are an invasive species in North America. I don't even think they're pollinators.They're just jerks.

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1 hour ago, Nyleve Baar said:

From what I understand they don't make honey. Bees store up the honey in order to survive the winter as a colony, albeit reduced in size. Wasps and yellow jackets don't overwinter. The only one that survives the winter is the queen - I assume she hibernates or something. Yellow jackets are an invasive species in North America. I don't even think they're pollinators.They're just jerks.

 

Honey bees are an invasive species too.

 

Cooking is cool.  And kitchen gear is even cooler.  -- Chad Ward

Whatever you crave, there's a dumpling for you. -- Hsiao-Ching Chou

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3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

 

Honey bees are an invasive species too.

 

You're right, of course. I guess I'm being species-ist. We do have our native pollinators but honey bees, as we know them, are European.

 

BUT THEY'RE NOT JERKS.

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A week ago I had some plumbers digging in my yard (don't ask). The backhoe unearthed a yellow jacket nest. All day they flew around us down in the hole as well as above. Lots of them and In the Fall when they get nasty,  but nobody  was stung. How odd. 

 

But nice. 

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1 hour ago, gfweb said:

A week ago I had some plumbers digging in my yard (don't ask). The backhoe unearthed a yellow jacket nest. All day they flew around us down in the hole as well as above. Lots of them and In the Fall when they get nasty,  but nobody  was stung. How odd. 

 

But nice. 

 

That was lucky! I wonder if they were trying to sting the backhoe? I don't think yellow jackets are the sharpest knife in the drawer. That doesn't keep them from being a humongous problem at times, though. Like @Nyleve Baar said, they are jerks! :)

 

Glad no one was stung, and I hope you can get your major plumbing SNAFU resolved quickly and without too much expense and trauma.

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> ^ . . ^ <

 

 

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15 hours ago, gfweb said:

A week ago I had some plumbers digging in my yard (don't ask). The backhoe unearthed a yellow jacket nest. All day they flew around us down in the hole as well as above. Lots of them and In the Fall when they get nasty,  but nobody  was stung. How odd. 

 

But nice. 

 

So here's how to kill a whole nest of the idiots without poisoning the neighbourhood. Soak a rag in gasoline or kerosene and place it beside the hole where the yellow jackets live. Take a large glass or plastic bowl or container and place it over the hole (and the rag). Wait a week or 2. That's it. The colony will be dead. I can't remember what the logic is to the glass bowl - something about the yellowjackets seeing the light and coming out and being killed by the fumes, I think. But the fumes also penetrate down the hole to exterminate the whole gang of them. I've done this so many times that I now have a dedicated bowl that I use for just this purpose.

 

Probably best to do this in the evening when everyone has gone into the nest because the yellow jackets that are still out will get really MAD when they can't get back into their hole.

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1 hour ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Do you know if this would work for ant hills?

 

Nothing you do can kill off ants.

Vast areas in Texas and in Florida were under very deep water for a long time. Do you think there will be no more ants in those areas?

 

dcarch

 

 

 

 

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