Of bees and painters

[Steve]

A friend of mine called and asked me if I would help him prep and paint a small house down in the state capital. Exterior house painting is not the kind of work you'll usually find me doing but for a friend, no problem. It's a small house in a quiet residential area. Completely in the shade of 60' maple trees. Nice.

After a few hours of scraping and sanding clapboards, I was quite aware of why I don't do this kind of work. Dressed in a hazmat suit and respirator, (because of lead paint) I was getting board and uncomfortable.

Suddenly I heard a little call..."Steve" and a thump. There's Joe on the deck with a swarm of bees doing their best to drive him out of town! Jumping off my ladder, I grabbed the garden hose and started getting the bees off of him. The bees won. Pretty soon we had his shirt and shorts out in the street with who knows how many bees swarming them.

It was then that I noticed the bees were "honey bees"! I've dealt with alot of hornets and wasps but this was a first for me. Seeing that I was already in a hazmat suit, I put on a spray hood, took a crowbar and climbed up to the peak. I pried off the trim boards and there it was. Honeycomb! Lots and lots of honeycomb.

The swarm had already stopped traffic and attracted most of the neighbors when it decided that the guy at the top of the ladder (me) was a better target than the shirt and shorts out in the street. To make a long story even longer, the bees won. We had to clear the area and call for help.

Police, fire department, fish and game and finally a professional bee keeper. He was amazing. As calm as calm could be. He rounded up what he estimated was 20,000 bees, saying the hive probably had twice that many. He gave about 10lbs. of honey to each of us... me, Joe and the home owner and kept many more lbs. for the swarm that he took with him.

It's gonna be kind of boring at work tomorrow...I hope...;)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Glad they were just honey bees. I've heard some horror stories about killer bees. Hoping they'll never make it to the East Coast is a pipe dream.

http://www.lawestvector.org/images/workercomb.jpg

[Donn]

Hey, being a house painter, and a former beekeeper...I can empathize. I would be interested in reading the F&G's report on the bees. It sounds like those bees could, possibly, be hybridized with Africanized bees (Apis Mellifera Alphonsiae). Even wild bees, fairly well depleted in this country by mite infestation, are not so aggressive that the whole nest will empty out on what is perceived to be an agressor, let alone chase you to the ground as you describe. Africanized bees will do that at the drop of a hat.

Also, I cannot imagine why your friend continued to work around the entrance to the hive with smelly chemicals, or if he was wearing dark clothing, especially blue. But if he wasn't 'bothering' the hive entrance, then that increases my suspicions that the hive has been Africanized.

The thing about African bees is not that they are so aggressive, but by history they are robber bees, which makes them extremely dangerous to commercial pollenating bee colonies.

Sorry about your encounter with what I consider, along with sharks, whales, orcas, dolphins, and ants, some of The Maker's more interesting creatures.

Suggestion: next time you or anyone is painting a house, and you see there is a bee colony in the walls, get a CLEAN spray bottle, never before used for anything, and fill it with 1/3 honey + 2/3 water, shake it up and check the spray, and when it comes time--spray the bees with it. They get to licking that honey off each other and they won't bother you--unless they are African or Africanized by interbreeding. Real beekeepers do not use smoke when openning a bee hive...we use honey water.

How's the honey? Did you get some pollen chambers too?

[Steve]

The bee keeper said that all the bees around here are Africanized. No real killer bees but an aggressive strain, none the less. Joe was working right at the entrance to the hive. The bees started to get upset so he gave them a shot of bee and hornet spray. That's when the real commotion started and although the whole hive didn't empty, it seemed like maybe a thousand or so were attacking. It's hard to say, but it was more bees than I've ever seen. And it's funny you mention it, he was wearing a blue shirt and green shorts.

The honey is pretty tasty. Strong in flavor. A little dark in color. Hard stuff to handle though. It doesn't stay in the comb very well. We put chunks of it into bowls and let it drain. Presents for the neighbors. Didn't get anything that looks like it would be pollen. Just honey. :)

[Donn]

The bee keeper said that all the bees around here are Africanized. No real killer bees but an aggressive strain, none the less. [/QUOTE]

Right. . .had all the symptoms. Well, that's what'll happen, and it'll be interesting to see how wild bees will evolve with these new genes from the African bees. I suspect the aggression will come up first along with a tendency to miss their environmental signals (especially for seasonal change), and we'll lose some of that aggression to die-off. It's the tendency to robbing that has everyone in the agricultural areas worried. They could make a real mess out of the bee colonies of commercial pollenating services. First, they'll rob them out in the fall so the commercial colonies' survival potential is weakened, and secondly, they will interbreed with the commerical bees and throw off their production potential.

Ever seen those flatbed tractor trailers with netting over them go by you on the highway--bees going to an orchard or a melon field.

Originally posted by Steve Joe was working right at the entrance to the hive. The bees started to get upset so he gave them a shot of bee and hornet spray. That's when the real commotion started and although the whole hive didn't empty, it seemed like maybe a thousand or so were attacking. It's hard to say, but it was more bees than I've ever seen. And it's funny you mention it, he was wearing a blue shirt and green shorts. [/B]

Well, I'll nominate him for a Darwin Award, but I don't think he'll get more than an honorable mention. That's a joke, not a slap. It's funny how we get programed by TV and print adverts about this kind of thing. We forget it's a living creature and not a character in a play, commercial, or story...blue and green, a can of spray insecticide...spray this and the bugs will fear you and run away: uhmmmm, no, not likely with bees, wasps, hornets, etc...they'll come looking for the big kamakazi play. It's been in their genes and spirit for eons.

I have to contemplate what the pleasure level must be like in a honey bee (barbed stinger stays in) when it stings and crawls or flies away and pulls its entrails out with it. Then goes off somewhere to die alone, rather than going back to the hive, which would be a burden on the hive. Now the queen is different, her stinger is not barbed and therefore she can make multiple stings, and stay alive to keep laying eggs.

The only thing your friend lacked was an allergy to stings and no epinephrine and he might have made the evening news...and the obit page in the local paper. But tell him I hope he heals and learned a lesson even if it had to be the hard way (no pun intended).

Originally posted by Steve The honey is pretty tasty. Strong in flavor. A little dark in color. Hard stuff to handle though. It doesn't stay in the comb very well. We put chunks of it into bowls and let it drain. Presents for the neighbors. Didn't get anything that looks like it would be pollen. Just honey. :) [/B]

Taste of the honey of course depends on where they got it, what flowers, or soda cans (yuk!).

If I'm reading you right you are saying the honey is a bit runny? That's interesting coming from a colony that has been Africanized. As they tend to be robber bees by history, they might not display great housekeeping with raw materials. What they would be robbing would be finished product, and that requires only re-storage in their hive, not any kind of maintenance. Consequently (this is at least a Masters Degree thesis topic by the way) one has to wonder if they are capping the chambers too quickly--before the nectar is fully dried out--and why?

Several hypotheses I would offer to the advisor: are the in-house worker bees experienced enough with fanning the nectar chambers to dry the nectar sufficiently. That involves creating an air flow to combine WITH the temperature-regulating air flow set up by the workers whose job it is to do that. Are the in-house workers that cover the chambers familiar enough with the nectar's viscocity to know that the nectar cannot be dried anymore and still be efficiently useable...and therefore that it is time to cover those chambers? Is there something about the nectar that it is watery, and the bees are working on a schedule rather than testing the nectar to see if it is sufficiently dried.

I'd be interested to see if aboriginal bees have adjusted to a time schedule with nectars with which they are familiar, or to see if there is a way to observe them actually testing the viscoicity of the nectar on a regular basis until it dries to a given viscocity.

If the nectar isn't dried beyond a particular viscocity, then it can be invaded by yeast, bacteria, and fungus. If it goes beyond that ideal viscocity then it could crystalize, and they tend not to use it because it takes to much energy (working with it and adding water to it) to make it useful again.

I used to collect swarms from people in the swarming season, and set them up in commercial hives. I had 7 hives at least five boxes each at one time while I was in college. Hmmm, seems like I went on a bit. As you might suspect--I miss it.

Great story, thanks... :)

[Steve]

Well Donn, it's clear that you know your stuff when it comes to bees and you have really tweaked my curiosity.

Thin honey? It is somewhat thinner than the stuff I've had in the cabinet for the past four years. :rolleyes: But it was more the wax combs. If I picked up a peice larger than say 6"x6", a chunk would break off and set the whole thing to running.

So what's the deal with the Africanized bees? The sting doesn't seem to be any worse than honey bees of 20 years ago. I got nine stings. Joey, about forty. He's feeling pretty good today. For the number of bees that were buzzing around, very few were actually stinging.
they will interbreed with the commerical bees and throw off their production potential.
Do they really produce that much less? Why don't we just start breeding the best of these bees, over and over until they are the best that they can be?

Were these wild bees? I would think so. They were certainly living on their own. If I was to come across another hive, would it be the same kind of bees?

What happens to all the bees that were left behind. We had some carpenters there today, ripping the roof apart and cleaning the rest of the combs out. There were alot of bees still buzzing around. They didn't seem organized like yesterday. What do they do now?

It seems I get stung at least a couple of times every summer. Hopefully this will count for this year.

It's the white faced hornets that worry me...:eek:

[Donn]

Originally posted by Steve
Well Donn, it's clear that you know your stuff when it comes to bees and you have really tweaked my curiosity.

Thin honey? It is somewhat thinner than the stuff I've had in the cabinet for the past four years. :rolleyes: But it was more the wax combs. If I picked up a peice larger than say 6"x6", a chunk would break off and set the whole thing to running.


Sounds like new comb, always kind of tender til it dries out a bit. But the runny honey, that, like I said, sets off a lot of questions. That's why there are sun boxes to stack the comb in upside down--to get the honey heated up enought to run out. Commercial operation of course use centrigfuges or spinning machines.

Originally posted by Steve
So what's the deal with the Africanized bees? The sting doesn't seem to be any worse than honey bees of 20 years ago. I got nine stings. Joey, about forty. He's feeling pretty good today. For the number of bees that were buzzing around, very few were actually stinging.[/B]

Now that throws a whole new light on the subject. Only a small portion of the bees stung, but many hanging around. That says two things: #1. the bees hanging around were probably very young bees, still getting oriented to the hive and it's physical surroundings. When bees sting, the others can smell it and they go right to the target or anything in the area that offends them. Your friend's blue clothing was like waving a bloody meat at a passing shark...considering that he had invaded their space. A passing bee is not going to go after someone with blue clothing, just don't start swatting her, and give her an excuse--all workers are females, males are only for breeding, then they are killed off.

The intensity of the sting is not what African bees are all about--it is their numerically massive and unrelenting assault response that is the problem, along with their sensitivity--walk by an African hive, throw a shadow on it, and hope your medical is paid up and there are paramedics in bee suits nearby. Wild bees or commercial bees...one or two might jump out to see what you are, but in the very great majority of cases you would not get an 'all hands on deck' call like you would if it were an Africanized hive.

Bee-sting fluid is a very very complex set of molecules, proteins, toxins, hystamines, and they change as they enter a blood stream. The jury is still out on it, still finding new things about. There is a man here in Maryland that delivers bees to people with muscular dystrophy, and they sting themselves one sting at a time with the bees, and there is a healing effect from it. No one understands how yet, but it works. Then again on some MD people--it does not work at all. But when it is effective, it is noticeably effective.

#2. The fact that they followed you out of the general area of the entrance, or attacked people away from the general area of the entrance is indication of possible Africanized bees to me. Most wild bees (they vary of course) and very few commercial bees will go out after a target once it leaves the general area of the entrance or intrusion area. They are smart enough not to waste their energy chasing, when the goal is to remove the intruder from the general proximity of the intrusion point. That enables them to devote their energies to the needs of the hive. Robber bees, like African bees, don't "think" like that. To them a target is a potential robber, and they will chase you forever--over aggressive, and that over-aggression is linked with low production.

Originally posted by Steve Do they really produce that much less? Why don't we just start breeding the best of these bees, over and over until they are the best that they can be?[/B]

Yes, their production in the wild is noticeably that much less, and their aggressive and robbing tendency make them dangerous to handle--it would obviously be very stressful for the keeper, and there could be liability if his hives went on a rampage in a populated area.

As for the breeding, that was how they got out (some people say intentionally) in South America in the first place. They were being kept in an enclosure for breeding purposes. There are so many factors to consider, I should get current on the data myself.

Originally posted by Steve Were these wild bees? I would think so. They were certainly living on their own. If I was to come across another hive, would it be the same kind of bees?[/B]

They were most certainly wild bees, I'd speculate--site unseen of course--that a new swarm queen had swarmed out of a wild hive, and it was invaded over by African bees looking for a queen; the African invadrs would have had males with them, possibly, if they too had swarmed out and their queen was injured or lost. The African males mated with the new swarm queen, or, more likely, the old one still in the old hive with half the goods the new swarm didn't take with them. That's one possible scenario, just one.

Originally posted by Steve What happens to all the bees that were left behind. We had some carpenters there today, ripping the roof apart and cleaning the rest of the combs out. There were alot of bees still buzzing around. They didn't seem organized like yesterday. What do they do now?[/B]

The remaining bees have few options and little chance of survival. Without the constatn re-supply of queen enzyme from their queen, they lose energy and the will to work, and will just die off. The upside of that is that when their queen enzyme--a unique scent--wears off them they might possibly be able to approach another hive and be accepted. It can happen but it is not a predictable event of the species. They will return to that location until...it's all they know...perhaps until the queen enzyme wears off, and then they might, possibly, try another hive.

If it were me I'd get a bee box with some commercial comb foundation and smear some of the hive honey and wax (very important) on the foundation (just a little honey, put the rest of the wax in the box, they'll use it up building new comb), it will have their queen scent on it, and put the box near the old hive. More than likely they will gravitate to it. Then get a beekeeper to show you how to introduce a commercial queen to the hive. One buys a little queen cage about the size of a match box to keep the queen in (put it in the center of the new box) and gradually the bees by association will pick up her scent and enzyme and gravitate to her rather than rejecting or harming her, and VIOLA! you have your own bee hive! It will be hard for a beginner, but you might be able to do it. It'll be expensive though. A good commercial queen will probably run you $100, the bee box and foundation...$25 to $50, elbow-length bee gloves, hat and net...you'd spend $200 easily. The down side of that is that they might not make it through the winter because the will have not had a chance to store up. You could feed them though, and bank three sides of the box with soil for insulation, and cover it with straw, leave the froont clear and about only a one inch space at the openning til spring, and they would probably make it.

Originally posted by Steve It seems I get stung at least a couple of times every summer. Hopefully this will count for this year. It's the white faced hornets that worry me...:eek: [/B]

You might want to be mindful about that. Sometimes when someone gets multiple stings you build antibodies against the sting fluiids, but sometimes it goes the other way.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Wow! Donn, I'm impressed! What the heck are you doing painting houses?

I read a thread on one of the sites I frequent recently that mentioned a logger who came running out from the woods where he was cutting down some trees covered with bees. Will try to find it again and link to it. They said he had so many on his face, it looked like a beard. The other workers used gasoline to kill the bees on and around him, then rushed him to the nearest hospital.

They did not make it in time.

I got stung a few times this year by a bumblebee that bounced off my truck mirror and landed behind me while I was driving out in the country. I got stung 3 times by the bee until my son crunched it after I leaned forward.

That freakin hurts! But oddly, in spells. It would really burn, then go away. Then ache up to an intense burn, then fade away over and over again for nearly an hour. I cannot imagine what it would be like to 'bee' stung 30, 40 or more times. The pain alone must be horrendous! I almost think that when a wasp stings a grub or other prey insect and puts it in a chamber, then lays an egg over it, that it may be the excruciating pain rather than the immobilization by paralisis that occurs to the insect involved.

My brother is/was allergic to Yellow Jackets if not more. I am not allergic to any, AFAIK. I've been stung by bumblebees, ground dwelling green bees and a few others with no ill effects. Even the recent stings were nearly unnoticable to someone who wasn't clued in to what they were looking for. Just a few red marks without any swelling whatsoever.

I, on the otherhand, was allergic to lobster (just another insect) for about 10-15 years. Throat swellings, numbness, little pain, more like a discomfort, and nausea with some 'reverse consumption'.. Started in my twenties, ended in my late thirties. I can eat as much as I want now, no ill effects. Odd. Like eating big bugs... ;)

[Donn]

Originally posted by Fruss Tray Ted
Wow! Donn, I'm impressed! What the heck are you doing painting houses?

Quite frankly? A high sense of ethics cost me a career with the USDA entomology service, let's leave it at that...

[i]I read a thread on one of the sites I frequent recently that mentioned a logger who came running out from the woods where he was cutting down some trees covered with bees. Will try to find it again and link to it. They said he had so many on his face, it looked like a beard. The other workers used gasoline to kill the bees on and around him, then rushed him to the nearest hospital.

They did not make it in time. [/B]

Love to read it, 'ppreciate if you can find it....

[i]I got stung a few times this year by a bumblebee that bounced off my truck mirror and landed behind me while I was driving out in the country. I got stung 3 times by the bee until my son crunched it after I leaned forward.[/B]

Right, bumble bees have smooth stingers, they can sting multiple times.

[i]That freakin hurts! But oddly, in spells. It would really burn, then go away. Then ache up to an intense burn, then fade away over and over again for nearly an hour. I cannot imagine what it would be like to 'bee' stung 30, 40 or more times. The pain alone must be horrendous![/B]

That come-and-go pain couold have been for a number of reasons--your brain putting out endomorphins, the chemistry of the venom being overtaken by your bodies defenses until it changed into something new...

[i] I almost think that when a wasp stings a grub or other prey insect and puts it in a chamber, then lays an egg over it, that it may be the excruciating pain rather than the immobilization by paralisis that occurs to the insect involved. [/B]

Depends on the wasp--tarantula wasps actually put their host into a kind of trance, that way the young wasps develop in a living host that they can eat once they hatch.

[i]I, on the otherhand, was allergic to lobster (just another insect) for about 10-15 years. Throat swellings, numbness, little pain, more like a discomfort, and nausea with some 'reverse consumption'.. Started in my twenties, ended in my late thirties. I can eat as much as I want now, no ill effects. Odd. Like eating big bugs... ;) [/B]

That's funny, I used to be allergic to raspberries, but not anymore. yep, lobsters, just another big bug (arthropod). :)