If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.
Came out of work at 2:30 today and found this on my truck. Drove ten miles down I-75 and still hanging on. Drove through a carwash and 1 hour across Lexington and still had a few.
I'd bet you have a nesting queen in that bed side or in that truck some where!
Watch your ass!
We had a guy at work who's car had a swarm on it like that .. eventually they got inside and he got stung like 35-40 times in less than 30 seconds.
Local "bee keeper club" came and removed the queen that was nesting in the space between the rear quarter panel and inner fender. They estimated he had been driving around with 25,000 bee's for a week or longer!
I saw a swarm like that many years ago at Armco in New Miami. An old guy that I was working with scooped them into a cardboard box and took them home. He kept bee's and said he could mail order a queen for them.
"driving around with 25,000 bee's for a week or longer!"
holy jesus... i can't even imagine that quantity of bees...
They came out with a special "bee vac" and gently collected what looked like 10 trillion bees .. they weighed them and gave us a guesstimate of 25K.
The dude that did the collecting also climbed in the car with nothing more than a dust mask on as protective gear.. he was a little strange to say the least..
What you can do next time is drive to an open place (like a wilderness area), use a CO2 fire extinguisher on them, they should fall off (or very easily sweep them off with a pair of gloves as frozen and dead bees can still sting you) andthen drive off. The bees will be frozen for a little bit, then they'll thaw and resume their normal bee lives.
I agree with not killing them. Believe or not it's not as easy being a bee as it used to be.
Honey bees in a swarm like that will avoid agressive stinging behavior as much as possible. Its a matter of survival at that point and they dont need to be attacking unless you REALLY piss em off. My dad is a bee keeper and before I moved here I used to help him collect swarms like this all the time. Call a local bee keeper and they will be more than happy to come out and collect a swarm, typically free of charge. As for the bees back on the other guys truck in the same spot, they are probably scouts that were sent out to find a place to live and they are returning to base.
Comment