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+--- Thread: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? (/showthread.php?tid=9334)
Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - Beachboy - 04-19-2012
I've been living roughly around six months up in Hawaiian Acres. I have yet to see one honey Bee pollinating a single flower up here. I've only seen a few Black bumble Bees?
Have you folks noticed the Bees gone in your subdivision?
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RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - Midnight Rambler - 04-19-2012
The varroa mites have done a number on them on this side. They can be controlled in managed hives but they've hit the wild ones pretty hard, and there's also the small hive beetle to deal with if you keep bees. Honeybees are still abundant on the Kona side though. BTW the large black bees are actually carpenter bees (the black ones are the females, the males are brown).
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - birdmove - 04-20-2012
Do the carpenter bees damage wood?
Jon in Keaau/HPP
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - jackson - 04-20-2012
They will bore a perfectly round hole about 1/4 inch in diameter.
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - Sue Nomie - 04-20-2012
In the early stages of the bee die off someone told me not to hurt the wood boring bees because they
will take up a small amount of the honey bees job. Down here in HPP I have not seen a honey bee in
months. Scary stuff. No bees, no food!
Back on the East Coast those bees did tons of damage to wooden structures, I have not seen that kind of
damage from them here. Maybe they like the available trees better than our house. Our old deck back there had them & when we tore it down and cut the beams in cross sections you could see the holes went in 2 feet deep.
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - EightFingers - 04-20-2012
quote:
Originally posted by birdmove
Do the carpenter bees damage wood?
Jon in Keaau/HPP
Yes they do! If you see one, in a couple years, you'll have lots more. The males usually hang around the tunnel entrances as sort of a "guard". They look like they are trying to intimidate you, but they have no sting (females are the ones that tunnel and can sting). I spray carburetor cleaner into the tunnels and that usually gets rid of them. You can keep track of active tunnels by watching for new wood debris that's ejected from the tunnels.
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - csgray - 04-20-2012
The Carpenter Bees really like dead ohia. We have a double trunk ohia that is half live and half dead quite close to the house and they haven't been interested in anything other than the dead wood in 3 years, they just keep boring new tunnels in the same trunk. No interest in the house or deck at all.
We also have some sort of ornamental heather that used to just hum with honey bees, and now it is silent. Same with some 20 foot palms when they are flowering, they used to to be so loud with honey bees humming you could hear it from pretty far away. I see far, far fewer honey bees than I did when we first moved in, we are about half way down HPP.
Carol
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - jackson - 04-20-2012
very scary about the honey bees. Without them, the Earth will not be able to support life and we will be gone in two generations.
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - Carey - 04-20-2012
Carpenter bees do not "eat" the wood, so even borate treated wood can be drilled by them. Good thing that they like softer, older, non-treated wood, so having sacrificial pieces of wood in your garden is good for them & for your garden & your wood (we have a couple of wood facia pieces that they love...when we replace them, we plan to add them to our lilikoi support.)
We did have some honey bees during our heavy orange blossom time....maybe not the same as in the past, but the flowering was also much earlier this year...
RE: Where have the Honey Bees gone to? - fishnchamp1 - 04-20-2012
Humans would not cease to exist if bees became extinct. There are many germinators in this world. But don't let that downplay the importance of the bee's laborious efforts. Plus I'd really miss their delicious sweeetener.
William DeBoe
Palm Beach, FL
Moe'uhane Oihana mahi ai