# HUGE BEE hive!!!!



## starr9 (Oct 7, 2011)

Ok walked outside and found this HUGE Bee hive!!!!!!! I did not see it yesterday tho I was not looking for it!!! How do I get them to move on as my Boyfriend is allergic to them! I dont want to hurt them but I do need them to move away!!! 

Such an amazing thing to see tho!!!! Made my day!!!

Any idea who I can call to move them on please?!?! Im in QLD on the Sunshine Coast.

The hive is about 50cm long! here are some pics!!!!


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## grimbeny (Oct 7, 2011)

I could be wrong but I think this is not in itself a bee hive, just the bees swarming. They will move on in their own time (few days) and find a proper nest. European honey bees wont make nests in the open like this on branches.


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## Jeffa (Oct 7, 2011)

Throw sticks at it, I dare you.


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## starr9 (Oct 7, 2011)

grimbeny said:


> I could be wrong but I think this is not in itself a bee hive, just the bees swarming. They will move on in their own time (few days) and find a proper nest. European honey bees wont make nests in the open like this on branches.



Ok cool!! Its out the font of our house near the road! just hope no one trys to do anything 2 them and lets them move on when ready! I did try google for info but nothing other than use chemicals etc. Such an amazing thing to see in tho!!! Thank you for your help!!!



Jeffa said:


> Throw sticks at it, I dare you.



How bout you go 1st and ill watch from inside and see how you go?!?!


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## mmafan555 (Oct 7, 2011)

Jeffa said:


> Throw sticks at it, I dare you.



Shooting it with a super soaker was the thing to do in America 


But Bee's are cool...its wasps that are the problem and suck


Edit now that I think about it which has the most painful sting? The Honey Bee, Wasp, Yellow Jacket or Hornet? I know absolutely nothing about any of them so I was just wondering.


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## snakeynewbie (Oct 7, 2011)

Persoanlly I'd organise someone to spray them, feral honey bees have a huge detrimental affect on our natural ecosystem, they are also often more agressive than their domestically kept counterparts


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## starr9 (Oct 7, 2011)

mmafan555 said:


> Shooting it with a super soaker was the thing to do in America
> 
> 
> But Bee's are cool...its wasps that are the problem and suck



Hahaha! Im over w8 at the moment so it could work as a training device and run my *** off when they go 4 me!!!



snakeynewbie said:


> Persoanlly I'd organise someone to spray them, feral honey bees have a huge detrimental affect on our natural ecosystem, they are also often more agressive than their domestically kept counterparts



How do you know if they are native or not?!?! I got very close to them to take the pics and they didnt try to sting me or anything. Who would I call?


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## snakeynewbie (Oct 7, 2011)

European honey bees are all feral. Native bees are mostly much smaller and come in other colours like black. Call a pest control agency or your council if they are on the nature strip.


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## Tristan (Oct 7, 2011)

qld bee removal - Google Search


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## mmafan555 (Oct 7, 2011)

snakeynewbie said:


> European honey bees are all feral. Native bees are mostly much smaller and come in other colours like black. Call a pest control agency or your council if they are on the nature strip.



Are all wasps and honey bees feral in Australia? What about Hornets?


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## snakeynewbie (Oct 7, 2011)

European wasps and european honey bees are feral and hornets most definately are but I'm not sure that we have them here yet(if we do they are probably fairly localised still). There are a few species of native honey bees that can be used commercially to fertilise crops but they don't look the same, smaller and darker in colour or with a blueish sheen to them, the downside of them is that they are tropical so south coast NSW is about the limit of where they can be used so the growers down south are stuck with european bees to fertilise their crops.


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## starr9 (Oct 7, 2011)

Tristan said:


> qld bee removal - Google Search



Tryd some on there and they will only go as far as cab and thats 40min from me. Iv called 8 places and they all said to try someone each other!!



snakeynewbie said:


> European wasps and european honey bees are feral and hornets most definately are but I'm not sure that we have them here yet(if we do they are probably fairly localised still). There are a few species of native honey bees that can be used commercially to fertilise crops but they don't look the same, smaller and darker in colour or with a blueish sheen to them, the downside of them is that they are tropical so south coast NSW is about the limit of where they can be used so the growers down south are stuck with european bees to fertilise their crops.



ooh ok thankx 4 that!


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## Wally (Oct 7, 2011)

All I can think about now is cooking toast.


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## grimbeny (Oct 7, 2011)

I would not be concerned about getting them removed. Although they are not native, there are many advantages to having feral bees arround especially for agriculture.


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## Jen (Oct 7, 2011)

Have you tried finding a local apiarist (beekeeper)? The Bee removal people should be able to point you in the right direction surely?


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## snakeynewbie (Oct 7, 2011)

By and large agriculture uses portable domestic hives if needed, feral bees are entirely unnecessary in urban areas and they compete with possums, bats and birds for tree hollows and with native insect species for food.


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## starr9 (Oct 8, 2011)

Jen said:


> Have you tried finding a local apiarist (beekeeper)? The Bee removal people should be able to point you in the right direction surely?[/QUOTE
> 
> I have tryd them and there is no local one in this are. They will not come out this far unless we pay them $110min :?


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## syxxx (Oct 8, 2011)

suit up with lots of layers a bit of tape etc and start throwing some sticks. Seriously though we had a hive like this move in they found a hollow in the concrete power pole after a day, rang the power company and they responded at 10 pm one night they pulled into my driveway two utes and a cherry picker safety lights etc and sprayed them. only two months after they arrived. Once they found their hollow they were barely noticeable. If they make their home in a hollow in one of your trees keep in mind they tend to damage the tree and exasperate the hollow which often leads to failure. We have had to deal with some terrible fallen tree jobs where we have needed to eradicate Bees and it's a pain in the...... where ever they sting you.


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## girdheinz (Oct 8, 2011)

There are over 2000 species of native bees in Australia, some tiny and black as mentioned and others extremely large like carpenter bees. Some are solitary or gregarious and some form colonies (like european honeybees).

As mentioned by grimbeny it is a european honeybee swarm. This is how they sexually reproduce or divide. This is known as an interim cluster. From this cluster the swarm will send out scout bees to look for a suitable nest site. If you can get close to the the swarm, you will notice the bees performing a waggle dance on the surface. This is how they communicate the location of resources or nest sites. Once the bees get excited and the swarm is in agreement it will generate enough heat to lift off by rapidly fanning their wings. Just before lift-off you will here a loud hum and the will drop from the branch and take to the sky. The scout bees then fly above the swarm and basically point in the direction where to go to the new nest site. From the interim cluster stage this generally takes 1-3 days and the lift-off time is usually between 10am - 2pm at this time of year.

As also mentioned, in urban environments this nest site is commonly in vent's, chimney's or wall cavities of houses, or of course in tree hollows. It's personal choice whether you have them destroyed or you let them live and contribute to pollination. They have been feral in Australia for well over 100 years. The competition for nest sites with other animals is a difficult issue. They often nest in cavities with tiny hole entances that no bird or mammal could fit in. Only last week i saw a presentation from a USYD student studying hollows showing cockatoos sharing a tree hollow with a feral hive. The bees stings were unable to penetrate the feathers.

In relation to pollination, it does not come down to native bees being tropical. Whilst that is a factor, the most common place stingless native bees are used to pollinate is in glass or greenhouses so temperature isn't largely the issue. We have succesfully pollinated vegetable crops in Victoria for a seed company using native trigona carbonaria and austroplebia australis. The issue is that these colonial bee species do not forage great distances from their hives and only have the capability of pollinating certain plant species. 

We have succesfully used some of the following bee species in certain crops;

Blue banded bees / Teddy bear bees / Carpenter bees - Tomatoes
Trigona and Austroplebia - Macadamia nuts, strawberries, a variety of vegetable crops
Leafcutter bees - Lucerne
Resin bees - limited in some vegetable crops

Cheers Gird



syxxx said:


> If they make their home in a hollow in one of your trees keep in mind they tend to damage the tree and exasperate the hollow which often leads to failure. We have had to deal with some terrible fallen tree jobs where we have needed to eradicate Bees and it's a pain in the...... where ever they sting you.



I have worked with bees scientifically for over 20 years, and there is no way on earth they can excavate a tree cavity and make a tree fall over. They simply fill a vacant cavity with wax combs. If anything, it would strengthen the cavity. The only time i have seen a limb fall, is when they have chosen to nest in a frail horizontal limb and the added weight of 5-10kg of stored honey has caused it to snap.

Gird



snakeynewbie said:


> By and large agriculture uses portable domestic hives if needed, feral bees are entirely unnecessary in urban areas and they compete with possums, bats and birds for tree hollows and with native insect species for food.



You would probably assume that however a lot of agricultural pollination in Australia is carried out by "feral European honeybees" very little managed pollination goes on in this country. Farmers are reluctant to pay for bees if the ferals are doing the job for them. 

The biggest issue will be if the parasistic mite varroa destructor gets into Australia. It it estimated that all feral bees will be wiped out within 2 years of it's arrival (based on other countries). It is only then farmers will appreciate the necessity for managed bee colonies as pollination of crops will fail without added bees. We are currently the only country in the world without it in our honeybees. This has lead to the formation of a "Pollination Australia" industry alliance in case of a situation like this.

Gird


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## Bluetongue1 (Oct 8, 2011)

girdheinz said:


> There are over 2000 species of native bees in Australia, some tiny and black as mentioned and others extremely large like carpenter bees... ETC


Thankyou for taking the time to pass on that information. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and found it very worthwhile. With respect to damaging trees, as you say bees most certainly don’t excavate but parrots will enlarge a hollow when needed. I am particularly intrigued by your comments about the types of hollows honey bees occupy. In my limited experience they seem to prefer splits rather that the more open hollow in limbs. 

I have seen the effects of a stone lobbed into a swarm when I was in primary school. The sky was quite literally darkened, over the entire playground, and a number of students were stung – most probably from hitting bees and trying to brush off any that landed on them. I am not certain if the swarm reformed but it most certainly moved on from the schoolyard. It was quite an awesome sight seeing the sky filled with insects like that and the noise of the buzzing was so loud.

For those who may not be aware, cereal crops are wind pollinated. Animal pollinated plants are essentially broad-leaved plants with flowers e.g. vegetables and fruit trees. Honeyeaters and a range of insects other than bees, such as beetles, are also common pollinators of certain flowers.

Cheers,
Blue


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## girdheinz (Oct 8, 2011)

Yes you are quite correct, i have surveyed many 100's of feral bee colonies and the majority have slit crack entrances or small holes. There is a particular reason for this. The bees guard their entrance to protect from predators. It would be unwise to choose a large open entrance. Beekeepers use the technique of reducing the hive entrance to prevent robbing from other colonies. In the situation where the bees were coming out of the same entrance as the cockatoos, i suspect the cavity gets smaller inside and the hive is probably some distance down the trunk.

Bees are fascinating to study, in my job i get to do a range of field work and lab work. For example this Winter i numbered every bee in a colony as so i could tell each bee apart as so i could observe certain behavioural traits. I dissected 11,000 worker bees to assess their ovary activation status during the swarming process. I watched 100 hours of footage of the Asian honeybee species Apis cerana and Apis dorsata to measure their dance angles time and their right or left handedness. I raise queen bees artificially and artificially inseminate queens. I control fly swarms to nest boxes containing nasanov pheromone and study the complete process of swarming and navigation. I've attached weights to bees to test energy consumption, aerofoils to slow their flight, i have even reduced the wings surface area to see what effect it has on speed. I fly helium balloons in remote national parks with a net and bee queen mandibular pheromone to survey the male populations in the drone congregation areas (DCA's) in the canopy. From there we can determine colony densities by the diversity in the male population. Best of all, even when your researching, bees produce honey and i get to extract a few tonnes per year . 

There is so so much more, but it's getting way off track from the awesome swarm in this thread (it's quite a big one to)

Cheers Gird


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## dottyback (Oct 8, 2011)

Awesome Swarm! I wish your local as i need more colony's to add to my apiary plus you would rid of them for nothing!

There would be a hive/s somewhere close by..


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## andyscott (Oct 8, 2011)

Jeffa said:


> Throw sticks at it, I dare you.



Dont be silly Jeffa, get her boyfriend to throw the sticks.
Then she can film it and put the link on this thread.


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## GeckoRider (Oct 8, 2011)

snakeynewbie said:


> hornets most definately are but I'm not sure that we have them here yet(if we do they are probably fairly localised still).


 We sure as hell have them When i lived in townsville i saw them all the time at school.. i Personally really hate paper wasps.. i have never felt there sting but just the look of them freaks me out lol


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## Bluetongue1 (Oct 10, 2011)

A little research reveals we do NOT have any species of hornets in Australia. Hornets belong to single subfamily of wasps not represented here but they do occur in Asia and Europe. The so-called “Australian Hornet” is a species of wasp, also known s the “Yellow Potter Wasp” or “Mason Wasp”.
What you may be thinking is a hornet could be a large Mud-dauber Wasp. We used get them in the whealtbelt and in Carnarvon WA. They were bright orange and black and the biggest ones were a good 3” or 7.5 cm in length. There are a number of species around and most seem to be yellow and black. 

Blue


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## LIZARDZ_11 (Oct 10, 2011)

get a peice of wax board box light it on fire let it burn a bit blow it out then while its still smoking jam it in a bottle and put the bottle near the hive the some will KO them.
it worked on mine that wil in a large bird box.


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## starr9 (Oct 10, 2011)

Thank you for all your in put!!! After that storm the other day they have now gone!! Thank you girdheinz, that was very helpful!!!!


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## Bluetongue1 (Oct 11, 2011)

Starr9, 

I am pleased for you to hear that. It must have been a tense and worrying few days.



Gird,

That work you are doing is amazing. Numbering all those bees cannot have been a lot of fun. And as for the stage of activity of the ovaries, well... I can only wonder at the reaction you’d get when someone asked you how you had spent your day and you replied: “Checking out ovaries.” I have got to say that the number you quote would be enough to have anyone picking spots of light off the wall and putting them into a basket. One thing I am not too sure about is if the best thing about the job is the honey or the fact that you actually get paid to do it. The honey or the money? Either way, I guess they are both sweet rewards.

I must say that insect flight is something that has long intrigued me. The clicking mechanism and the resultant number of wing beats per second I still find amazing. It’s on a par with the humming bird’s remarkable abilities – to alter the wing angle while maintaining such an incredibly rapid wing beat. I wasn’t aware that drones from different colonies congregated, particularly at tree top level. Do you use DNA to separate the various origins? I had better stop there but it really is fascinating. Thanks again for your insights.

Blue


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