Arizona Chickens

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote: We scraped off the excess with a hive tool. Mostly though they put it out where bees can get to it and they clean it up. If it was really bad, we just replaced the frame rather than spend the time on it.

 

[Demosthine]

With everyone talking about bee's I have a question. I have a friend that asked if he can set up some bee boxes on my property. I have 1. 1/4 acre and have some live stock, a vegetable garden a few flower beds, trees, fruit trees etc. I see bees all the time especially on my lilac and my fruit tree blooms. I am allergic to bees but I know that I had a wild hive set itself up in my mesquite tree 2 years ago for a week then it left. Should I let her put a box and what will that mean for me. They are trying to encourage me but I just try and stay away from them since they make me very sick. You all seem very knowledgeable and I know we need them so any help would be awesome.

So long as he is willing to come out and manage the hive for you, I would encourage you to allow it. A properly managed hive, which is quite simple to do, is very docile and non-aggressive. They are very, very beneficial to things like your garden and fruit trees, so you should get larger yields out of them in subsequent years. And, of course, there is the huge benefit of harvesting the honey. If you've never had raw honey, it's like the difference between buying a steak at Food City versus Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Not to mention, a recent study found that over 70% of the honey in stores is not honey. It's is actually some combination of High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The recommendations I have seen for people with large acreage and farms seems to be between 4 and 5 hives per acre. When they leave they hive, they will primarily fly upwards and then out from there. In addition to the hive box and plenty of pollen in the area, they'll need a good source of water. This can be a stream, lake, swimming pool, bird fountain or anything else you come up with. It doesn't have to be very much water, either. I've know a few people who just put a small water fountain in the vicinity of the hive, with a solar pump to circulate the water.

I live on about 1/5th of an acre and the wild hive has been there on my property for about three weeks. I noticed the occasional bee around when I was working in that side yard, but that was it. Within 20' of the box, I have my beehive fireplace and have spent several evenings with a fire going. Before lighting it around sunset, I didn't even notice any bees. Once the sun sets, their activity level drops immensely. When I moved the hive last night, I did it at about 10:00pm and they were more docile than I have ever seen. I've had several sodas outside on my patio or while doing yardwork and they never bothered it, either. Even a friend that is deathly terrified of bees was standing within 20' of the hive and she had absolutely no idea it was there.

I find that people usually severely overreact to bees. The "Africanized" bee movement has put an unnatural fear of them in to society, and I personally believe it is a fabricated scare. It is the human aggression that causes a bee to become aggressive and sting. If you think about it, since a bee dies after they sting, then that is their last recourse. With so much of society avoiding nature and never leaving the city, they have become scared of the simple things that our ancestors were use to.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
I beg to differ on the "fabricated scare" comment. Africanized bees can be far more aggressive than European honey bees and their behavior is much less predictable. That said, there has been a huge over-reaction to bees in this country. Which is not doing my garden any favors. I love the wild bees around my yard, as long as they mind their own business. Not thrilled when the scouts start checking out small openings around my house

 

[pastrymama]

I beg to differ on the "fabricated scare" comment. Africanized bees can be far more aggressive than European honey bees and their behavior is much less predictable. That said, there has been a huge over-reaction to bees in this country. Which is not doing my garden any favors. I love the wild bees around my yard, as long as they mind their own business. Not thrilled when the scouts start checking out small openings around my house

I had to re-read your post a few times. I just kept thinking. " now why are they having boy and girl scout troops looking at homes for holes? is there a spackling badge I don't know about? I must have missed that leader meeting. "

 

[carnivore]

I'd love to get some and I plan on ordering a package or two if I end up staying at my current house, where I set up the raised garden beds. After lots of reading, it seems that you need no less than about a 5' radius of corn crops in order to properly pollenate and grow the ears. A 5' square is very common, but the corners don't get proper pollenating, so a circle seems to be more recommended. It's creative. I wouldn't have thought to do a circle in order to prevent useless growth in the corners. Another key to the native corn seems to be that they want the typical hard, dry Arizona soil, so raising in the garden bed may not be the best idea. I'm still trying to get more feedback on that.

Another thing to note that it is not considered an "edible" corn, meaning you don't eat straight off the cob. It is a flint corn, used for making flours or popcorn. Obviously, it's also a great ornamental corn.


From my understanding, this is more of a desert and mid-West area corn than the typical sweet corn varieties. Complete sunlight works just fine, and it prefers more of the hard packed, clay soils as opposed to the great garden soil we develop for our raised garden beds. Another thing is that over watering seems to be very common and problematic with the Glass Gem. Did you try planting it with the "Three Sisters" or did you plant it by itself? Corn in general is very heavy on it's nutrient consumption, so additives are heavily recommended. I haven't grown any yet, but that's all information I've read so far. Hopefully that can help you, though.

I wish it was that easy. The Hopi blue corn is in an aquaponics wicking bed, and so, is watered 24/7. (it is also in a greenhouse, that filters the sun somewhat). The Glass Gem in the yard is watered once a day, with an occasional skipped day. They are both in the same soil mix, a mixture of coconut coir and potting soil. They both get fed koi poop enriched water. Hopi blue = 7 feet; Glass Gem = 7 inches. Next year, the Glass Gem goes in the greenhouse!

 

[kevs-chickadees]

What interesting timing on the bee talk, I was going to ask about this just last week. I was wondering if there was anyone in the near area that wouldn't mind the occasional tag along. I'm trying to learn about bee keeping and the only thing I've found local so far is the monthly meeting in Phoenix, at that rate it would be years before I knew enough to keep any bees.I'm in mesa and because of my unpredictable work schedule the closer the better. Any takers?

 

[Demosthine]

What interesting timing on the bee talk, I was going to ask about this just last week. I was wondering if there was anyone in the near area that wouldn't mind the occasional tag along. I'm trying to learn about bee keeping and the only thing I've found local so far is the monthly meeting in Phoenix, at that rate it would be years before I knew enough to keep any bees.I'm in mesa and because of my unpredictable work schedule the closer the better. Any takers?

I am by no means an expert, having just started my hive, but you're more than welcome to tag along any time. I'm up Northwest of Arrowhead Towne Center, though, so it's a drive for you. Sunday night, I should be going back out to Tempe to try and fix the mess that a friend's neighbor got herself into. She took my hives that I thought I wasn't going to need, and decided to set it up. A swarm quickly occuppied the empty hive. Except she had no idea what she was doing and did it completely wrong. It's sitting on a small, decorative table that is sinking in to the dirt, there is no bottom board, no queen excluded, six supers are stacked up and she has no interior top cover. The supers are not stacked correctly, either. I opted not to move it tonight because she already has a ****** off neighbor. I think we need to relocate them off the property.

Anybody in the East Valley want a hive? Just briefly looking, they seem very productive. They were very agitated, but with a screwed up hive like that, I don't blame them. They did not act Africanized, though.

I'm going to try to get ahold of a guy in Scottsdale that rescues hives and have him help. I'm a bit out of my league on this one, but I hate the thought of them being killed off by all these exterminators.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

Oh my God! I have seeds! No, I mean I have seeds!!! $$$.¢¢ of seeds. Looks like I will need a home for seeds as well!

Wasn't Gallo going to start a seed collection box and send it around the State? Take what you want, fill it with things you don't want.. send it off to the next person on the list. Maybe we need to get that going during the summer planting doldrums.

gallo is welcome to them, I also collect my own seeds, I will not be planting now. Those will be, maybe best.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

Does anyone in the valley know of a beekeepers supply store? I had several boxes of bee hive parts sitting on the side of my house and with the warmer weather, noticed a few bees interested. So when I went to start relocating the boxes, I found a colony had established an actual hive in one of the deep supers. There were no frames inside, so they just built their own combs. You can see them in the picture below. But tonight, I took the rest of the pieces out and actually set up the hive. I moved the deep super over to the corner of the yard and set it on the base. I added six frames to it to fill the other half where the natural combs were not at. After a few weeks, I'll check it all again and probably remove the wild combs. In the meantime, I need to get some equipment. I gave everything I had to City Farm, who's friend set it up and immediately attracted a swarm of her own! I need to start building more supers and frames in the meantime.

​

On an interesting note, the wax combs from the old frames is a black color, which strikes me as very odd considering everything else I've seen is white or yellow colored. It has a very strong chocolate flavor to me, too! I really wish I had have been able to talk to the ol' timer when I got them from his wife, but he wasn't there. He was from out of state, so the possibilities are endless. I'll try to post some photos of the wax that I removed when the lighting is better. It smells so good, though. This new hive's wax is pure white. I need to research the differences.

if you get rid of the queen, and re-queen with a known domestic queen you should not have problems with Africanization. They usually are not to aggressive in the early stage. Get your new queen, make a 5 sided gage 3.5"x2"x1/2" with 1/8" mesh. Remove the existing queen. Smash her into the screen to spread her sent. Put the new queen, still in her box in the screen. Find the brood chamber, look for cell where the new workers are ready to emerge, place the cage over the cells so when the young bees comes out they will attend to her right a way. Leave this for a min. of 5 day, until the queen has eaten her way out of the travel box and the rest of the hive have accepted her. You need to wait until the hive is better established, otherwise they just might leave. The Arizona Bee Association just covered the importance of re-queening in Arizona, and maintaining a majority domestic bee. The queen on her maiden flight mates with 20 drones, the Africanized are faster and mates first, you hive can fluctuate from non-aggressive to mildly aggressive to aggressive and back again depending on the drones she mated with and the order of the sperm she uses, which is the reverse order of mating. Of course there are other ways of introducing a queen.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

I'll call you shortly, but that's all crazy talk there!  I'll try to borrow Bonnie's suit (or just clothing up like I did last night) and come Sunday evening and we can look over and work with the hive.  Tell them not to mess with it, unless it starts getting really problematic like the table is bowing or looks like it'll break.  We'll get a real stand set up for it and see about reducing the size of the hive to minimize it's growth.  I'll check the honey stores as well.  Just don't let them kill it off and tell them not to have anyone else come back out, PLEASE?!?  I hate it when people just jump in to things like this!

Yes you can barrow my suit, any time. To repeat, re-queening will de-Africanize a hive in time as the original Die off. It is suggested once a year, but a minimum of ever 3 years, in 3 years there is a 95% chance they ARE Africanized. (2 years almost the same).