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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: catherinelguerrero AT gmail.com
  • Cc: NCBeekeepers Orange County <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] New Hives
  • Date: Tue, 01 May 2012 22:05:27 -0400

Catherine,

I remember seeing some photos of bee yards in India that Wyatt Mangum had in the ABJ a while back. They had set down dozens of identical hives all in straight rows, all right up next to each other. The hives on the ends were completely obscured by bees while the ones in the middle were very light. It was a great illustration of how drifting works when there are no visual cues for the bees. They can tell right from left (or at least end from end), but can't get any bearings on the middle.

In Europe, traditional hives are stacked in arrays sort of like the banks of mail boxes for an apartment building. The beekeepers paint all sorts of colorful designs and pictures on the face of each hive to provide a means of orientation. It must work.

I've seen presentations on what sorts of patterns bees can recognize. They are very good at detecting "openness" versus "brokenness", for example two parallel lines versus a cross versus a circle. Why not experiment with some designs on your boxes and see what happens?

Randall Austin

On 5/1/2012 8:39 PM, catherinelguerrero AT gmail.com wrote:
Hey All,

I hived four packages today. Three of the hives were lined up on a long
stand, about a foot apart. Because of how they are set up I expected some
drift, but I noticed pretty quickly that the hive in the middle ended up with
many fewer bees than either side, and the hive to it's right ended up with
the most.

I had some drawn comb from a hive I lost last winter. I tried to space it out
among all the hives, but the hive on the right (the one that got the most
bees) ended up with the best comb and probably more honey than the others. My
question is whether that might have affected the drift, or weather there
might be an issue with the queen in the middle hive that made her less
attractive.

I shook bees into the middle hive and buttoned them all up. I'll check the on
Saturday. I am just wondering if that's normal or if it might mean anything.

Catherine

Sent from my iPhone
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