Predators

Sitting in front of the hive while eating lunch this summer, I couldn't help feeling a little protective when I saw a Bald Faced Hornet tackling honey bees mid flight in front of the entrance. The Hornet would fly hard into the bee and knock it out of the air then quickly try to locate it in the grass below the hive. It took several tries before it manged to catch a bee on the ground. When it did, it stung it several times and grappled with the dying bee until it stopped struggling. The Hornet had caught dinner. In the natural order of things I suppose it is fair. My bees are not the only ones trying to eek out a living in this landscape. And my bees are, after all, not the natives.

This is a Bald Faced Hornet that flew into the trailer. I caught it in a jar and decided to take it's mug shot before I released it.

Flower/Crab Spiders usually wait in flowers to catch bees. Here are a couple of pictures I took the other day.
As crazy as it seems, I noticed what must be a mite on the back of this spider. There is an interesting,
albeit difficult to read, scientific paper about parasites on spiders.

This Flower Spider decided to set up at the one place she just couldn't miss, the entrance of my hive.
"Like shooting fish in a barrel" my Grandpa used to say.

She stayed for a couple of days and then disappeared. This video shows the bees going to check her out and then running away. EEk spider!

Measuring With Body Parts

Here I am pulling two Top Bars apart and causing a little chaos. As always, click for a much larger picture of bees holding on to each other in a chain.

Festooning is what it is called when bees hang together in a chain. These bees might be "measuring" out the top bar or could be doing something else, the jury is still out about why they do it, but I think it's pretty cool. They do this before they begin to build their comb. It's hard to describe if you've never seen this, but the bees hold on to each other in little chains and don't let go

even if you stretch them a ways out. They don't want to lose their place I guess. I don't know if bees in Langstroth hives do this.

Another thing that I have observed that my bees do in Top Bar Hives is that they build a huge variety of cell sizes.

Not being a scientist I can only guess what this is about, but I bet the bees know exactly what it is about and I have decided to just trust them when it comes to cell size.

 

They don't have that kind of freedom when they are working in a hive with prestamped foundation. They must create the cell sizes that are stamped into the plastic or wax. I wonder what that is like for them?
I found this page on Bush Farm's web site helpful for his experience with natural frameless comb.