Whatever floats your boat...

Hiving Arataki Bees

Why am I playing with thousands of bees? Well, how else would I spend Easter Sunday?

Get Embed Code

Tags:

Comment by JoAnn on April 4, 2013 at 11:30pm: That was very interesting. I would be afraid of all the bees even if I had a suit. Yesterday I was in my backyard with my cat, Sunny, here in Southern California, and I heard a loud buzzing noise. When I looked up there were a buzzillion bees overhead. I grabbed my cat and ran into the house. Luckily I they were just passing through. When I went out a few minutes later they had moved on.

Comment by AnnelidaFilms on April 5, 2013 at 2:23pm: To me, it's a lot easier to face bees I already know about vs. being surprised by a buzzillion of them. It sounds like you witnessed a swarm, which beekeepers value greatly. In Vancouver, swarms are mentioned on the radio like traffic report updates, and beekeepers rush out to capture them. A swarm represents a colony that could produce hundreds of pounds of honey for you. My cats are having a great time chasing the bees. I suspect that enthusiasm may change quickly if the bees decide to take exception.

Comment by BlancheNoE on April 5, 2013 at 7:29pm: You were already one of my heroes (for "Trees") and now you're an even bigger one.

We need bees.

Badly.

For everything.

I don't want to live in a world where corporations control the pollen spraying of select crops....at a price.

A very, very high price.

Comment by AnnelidaFilms on April 7, 2013 at 12:49am: @S&b2 - Thank goodness Canada is far less litigious! Urban bee hives are actually promoted by Vancouver, which has 2 hives on the roof of City Hall.

@Blanch - Aw, shucks... and yes, WE NEED BEES!!!

Comment by NatureJunkie on April 7, 2013 at 5:07pm: Wow, this is the most interesting video I've seen in a while! I've never been stung by a bee and I'm not afraid of them, but keeping a hive has always looked like a lot of work. Like a gourmet cooking show, you've made it look deceptively easy.

You mentioned that all those workers will be dead a few weeks from now. How does the hive survive that? Do the queen's eggs start turning into newly hatched bees by then?

P.S. LOL at "Now with MORE cats!"

Comment by AnnelidaFilms on April 7, 2013 at 7:51pm: Hi NJ!

One of my beekeeping mentors told me that this video is giving him second thoughts about how authoritative anything that he sees on YouTube might actually be, knowing how little I actually know about beekeeping. This is my first hive, but the learning curve is very short.

Workers (female) and drones (male) take 3 and 4 weeks to hatch, and they live another 6 and 8 weeks, respectively. The drones are often killed earlier, because they only mate once with the queen and then just sit around and do nothing but eat. Don't get any ideas! Queens hatch in 16 days and can live for 5 years, but they don't produce well after 2-3 years. Unlike Great Britain, bee hives often exile or kill their old queens.

Comment by spacemonkey1310 on April 21, 2013 at 8:02pm: Very informative and interesting. Was that Lee Harvey Oswald in there ha?

Comment by AnnelidaFilms on April 21, 2013 at 8:29pm: And the "Spot The Assassin Reference" prize goes to spacemonkey - a Brit with an eye for US President killers. Hmmm...

Comment by spacemonkey1310 on April 22, 2013 at 11:22am: Thank you! I'd like to thank my parents for organising and helping me win the sperm race that gave me a shot at this award. I'd like to thank (insert belief system/imaginary friend here) for making me believe I could do it! Finally I'd like to thank the good people of the Ark for being generally just brilliant.

Thanks! I love you all!!!!

Comment by Geoff on April 25, 2013 at 2:20pm: That was rather cool. Some eerie moments like when you first brought the buzzing shipping tube close to the camera and when you dumped out the final clump of stragglers. How much honey will that hive produce? And what kind of time frame.