One more detail that we overlooked...

[helen99]

We attempted to move the beehives last night, and realized they were too heavy - it would require more people to move them intact or they'd have to be taken apart and moved in pieces, further disrupting the bees. So we decided to wait until Rialian's dad and the ranger got there today.

Wellp, you can't do that. After the bees were disrupted by the bear, there was a window of opportunity when they were totally disoriented and could be moved. However, once the bees saw the sun this morning, the window of opportunity ended. Bees remember where they are by orienting themselves with respect to the sun. Once they do that, if you move the hive to another point in the yard, they will get lost.

So now we can't move them. The two hives that were attacked will most likely not survive anyway, because workers only live for about 4 weeks, and it takes three weeks for new workers to emerge. The brood was wiped out two weeks into maturing, so there will be no more workers to replenish the existing ones.

We will still put up the e-fence next week so we can put any future hives inside the fence. We may be able to get a new hive soon.

Comments

[guardianjain]

*curses on your behalf*

What a bloody mess.

*hug*

[helen99]

We're down to one hive, but this one looks like it's sticking around. It's one of the ones that swarmed and Railiann caught the swarm. He put them back into a different hive that had been moved a few yards away from their original location (this was key - we should have done this with the other two as well, but didn't know that at the time). I was looking at them today and there were plenty of bees flying around the hive. Maybe they'll survive, not sure. We'll know in the next month or two. We won't be able to move them, though, so they'll never have the benefit of the fence. The bear has not come back, but then, there's no brood to eat. Hopefully by the time there is, he'll be long gone. They travel about 25 miles a day sometimes.