As always wasps are here to pick up a fight with bees .
What are you afraid of more bees or wasps ?
Well both certainly can do some serious damage, they have certainly tried to give me some warnings but (my grapes) so you get what I leave you .
Thank God there's plenty to be shared.
The field is packed late evening as the Sun goes down & it gets cooler ..... i think they smell fear as my brother got stung multiple times hahaha...
please feel free to zoom in i just can't find a photoediter that can zoom & refresh the pixel at the same time as the original gallery of my phone Huawei , if someone can help me with that.....
A small treat for you ....zoom on the grape that the bee is on can you spot her wet wings marked on it ,
great seeing you as always your fellow steemian @topslim.
Bees get a bad rap with grape farmers. Bees will not split a grape open to get the sweet juice, but if there is nothing else around they will work grapes already split by other insects. If they are working grapes that tells me you are in a dearth though. You might check your hives to make sure they have plenty of stores and open nectar in the comb, If not you might consider giving them a little feed.
you are right, bird's are to blame...
They are somewhat hungry ,
I don't use sugered water to feed the bees but i think I'm coming to that...any advice.
I fed my first packages until they had had 2 brood boxes full of comb and it was time to put supers on. Since then I hadn't really fed but once or twice in extreme emergencies. Last few yrs I hadn't fed sugar at all I simply left some honey in big hives to give to new hives and splits. Well the bees taught me something new last yr. They taught me that they have been localized to the point that they no longer brood up in a dearth like commercial italians will, even if they have capped stores. Nothing coming in equals no new bees. That's great in the summer time as the brood break helps with the mites, but last september when our golden rod should have started and they should have been brooding up to make young fat winter bees they didn't and i ended up losing 14 colonies this last winter because they simply didn't build up enough numbers. So now I have decided that sugar is cheap insurance and if they need it, they need it. I still wont be one of those guys that robs every ounce of honey to sell for $8/lb and replace it with %0.10/lb sugar.
I think I'm being lazy by not developing a plan or a schedule as when to harvest & when to feed . Every thing needs some practice and experience to be tuned .... definitely will consider if they really need food.
a plan is good, sticking to a plan no matter what is bad. it's about like playing chess, you gotta know what your next 12 moves are before they happen so when something changes, you have time to react.
Very cool pics!! I bet the bees are very thirsty and they're finding the grape juice pretty refreshing! Haha
I am definitely more afraid of wasps. Bees seem to be pretty oblivious to the world when they're foraging. But I have found that if I turn on a water source on one side of the yard then the wasps will leave me alone in favor of the water. :D
You'd be surprised but I learned a new word from you .... foraging. Haha
I think that's great!