Here is a fun, short video on hunting honey from the Giant Honey Bee. Clearly shot oversees by amateurs, it shows the technology used in 3rd world countries.
Note that Apis Dorsata only builds one comb, and it can get to be the size of a door.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_ze8Fab4s
Found a great article about the travels of Brother Adam in his quest. A pleasant read, and informative about the nature of the German bee vis a vis the Tellian.
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http://apicultura.wikia.com/wiki/In_Search_of_the_Best_Strains_of_Bees
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Whew. I did the cutout on the water cooler hive that Frank and I took to my apiary. Took about 2 hours. In the last half hour the bees got real angry, which is abnormal, normally they have the wind taken out of their sails by then. Then they launched a full bore attack. I took about 20 stings through my beesuit before I had to retreat to the truck. Years ago I got in the habit to leave my keys in the ignition and the truck unlocked just in case. Finally, years later, I had to use the truck for safety. I got home and had welts all over, I was a sad sight in the mirror.
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Needless to say, I’ll be pinching that bitch of a queen when I find her next, then killing off the queen cells for 4 days. After that I’ll give them a frame of eggs from a milder hive.
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The good news is the hive had dozens of pounds of honey. I crushed and strained mine, and saved Frank’s honeycomb for him to do the same. I think I should get a little more as I took the brunt of the attack to get our honey.
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Swarm calls this weekend were OK, had a dud swarm of less than a pound of bees on Friday that I just threw into a hive to up the numbers. Then on Sunday I had the biggest swarm I’ve seen. Likely 8-10 lb.
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I also finally got my videos to transcode right for Blip.tv. It’s all about h.264 and a *.mov extention. Blip timed out if I gave it a *.mp4 So be it.
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Video I added was a swarm capture and a honey raid.
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