Bees in Atlanta

[///AMG]

I don't know a ton about bees, or beekeeping, but one thing I learned was that your Mar/Apr dandelions that folks try to choke out with pre-emergent or weed/feed are some of their only flowers until about now. One man's trash is another man's (or bee's) treasure I guess

 

[dustoff17]

Perhaps I was cruel, although I never killed one unless the dogs had injured it and it was just flailing around on the ground, I'd just step on it. I'd use quicksetting wood caulk and pump it into the holes until it flowed out, wipe it off, wait for it to cure and then paint over it. Carpenter bees are not conducive to home ownership if they're in your area or for some reason they find your house tasty. I don't hate them, I just don't like things trying to eat my house.

And if you build them something like this, they will leave your house alone! No caulk required….

 

[A Life Aloft]

I don't know a ton about bees, or beekeeping, but one thing I learned was that your Mar/Apr dandelions that folks try to choke out with pre-emergent or weed/feed are some of their only flowers until about now. One man's trash is another man's (or bee's) treasure I guess

Dandelions are a good food source for the bees because they can get both nectar and pollen from them. Lots of other insects and many species of butterflies also rely on dandelions for a food source. I wish more people would educate themselves on bees in general and let the dandelions just flourish, instead of pulling them up.

 

[dustoff17]

My family and I raise Monarch! Every time I see one go to chrysalis or emerge, I am in awe!!
Last year we raised and released 168, tagging 150 of them and it was our lowest in the past 5 years. Our highest was 2 years ago at 230-ish.

 

[A Life Aloft]

My family and I raise Monarch! Every time I see one go to chrysalis or emerge, I am in awe!!
Last year we raised and released 168, tagging 150 of them and it was our lowest in the past 5 years. Our highest was 2 years ago at 230-ish.

View attachment 64619

That's just beautiful, man.........really beautiful.

 

[tcco94]

Why no “Oh Delda ___” name format???

Someone beat CC to the punch.
Hold your L high pal, @Cherokee_Cruiser

 

[Maximilian_Jenius]

We raise and keep tens of thousands of honey bees on the ranch to make several varieties/flavors of organic honey and sell the honey as part of our income to sustain the ranch. We have also planted just hundreds of flowers, plants, more fruit trees and flowering bushes and shrubs that they love, and are "bee friendly", as they need both the pollen and nectar to live/exist.

Wild Honey bees have been having some decline in their populations in the US due to a variety a variety of awful issues. Loss of habitat due to more development of land, toxic chemicals in the environment, toxic pesticides/herbicides, drought areas losing flowers and plants that the bees need to feed off and climate change are the most important issues that the bees face. Most people do not ever think of honey bees and how important they are. We need them for our food crops (their role in agriculture is just huge) and also for the flowers, trees and plants in our eco-system.......birds, other insects and even mammals rely on bees for a host of reasons.

This is a terrible event, especially since these bees were being sent to Alaska and were to be sold/distributed to commercial bee keepers there. It's just plain horrible. I hope that Delta plans on compensating (monetarily) this woman for her loss, at least. Some crappy little apology just doesn't cut it. I also hope that she is able to find more colonies as soon as possible. This is really a big deal.......again, more than most people just won't even realize how disasterous this situation really is. Ugh.

Bees are the worlds largest pollinators. Butterflies, wasp et al. would not be able to pick up bees slack.

 

[NovemberEcho]

My family and I raise Monarch! Every time I see one go to chrysalis or emerge, I am in awe!!
Last year we raised and released 168, tagging 150 of them and it was our lowest in the past 5 years. Our highest was 2 years ago at 230-ish.

View attachment 64619

we planted a bunch of butterfly bushes along our fence when we moved in and get tons of monarchs. We are hoping to turn a stretch of our yard into a wildflower garden this summer and include milkweed in it for thrm.

 

[dustoff17]

we planted a bunch of butterfly bushes along our fence when we moved in and get tons of monarchs. We are hoping to turn a stretch of our yard into a wildflower garden this summer and include milkweed in it for thrm.

Awesome!
The flowers will give them nectar but they will search for miles looking for milkweed To lay their eggs.
Plant milkweed and they will come!

We collect the Monarch eggs to protect them from ants. This way we raise the caterpillars in a controlled environment so they don’t fall victim to Tacnid flies (#2 threat to Monarch population).

sorry, couldn’t make this picture smaller for some reason.……

 

[///AMG]

Suppose you had a good 25,000 sq ft of yard, in partially shaded to full afternoon sun, that is currently overgrown with fiddleheads, some blackberry bushes that are trying to re-establish themselves, and a bunch of wild grass and (seasonal) wildflowers. Would this be a good place to clear out and then potentially plant a wildflower/insect paradise? I'm looking for something that will outgrow the incessant regrowth of blackberries and other weeds that just want to turn the area into a jungle. I don't think grass is a very good choice, since I already have plenty of that. I've also considered wild salal since it grows extensively here.....

 

[poser765]

I don't know a ton about bees, or beekeeping, but one thing I learned was that your Mar/Apr dandelions that folks try to choke out with pre-emergent or weed/feed are some of their only flowers until about now. One man's trash is another man's (or bee's) treasure I guess

Wife and I very specifically didn’t mow for a few weeks when we should have.

 

[///AMG]

Wife and I very specifically didn’t mow for a few weeks when we should have.

I guess I struck a compromise......I mowed the front, and left the backyard wild for the critters. We currently have a family of bunnies chowing down, much to the dog's chagrin. And our owl has come back to the treeline at the back of our property which is cool. We're also just starting to get the wildflowers popping up in the backyard/sideyard hillside jungle I mentioned earlier. I'm too dumb to get my phone video uploaded to this site, but I got a great snapshot of a bald eagle flying LOW over the yard, apparently engaged in some sort of dogfight with a few local seagulls. It was bananas to watch while sipping my morning coffee. Guy keeps landing on the neighbor's roof, and then gets chased off by swarm of angry birds, flies at window level by my yard, pops up, fights birds and then comes back down to land, rinse repeat. For a while I thought he was injured, but realized he was probably just trying to eat their chicks or something. Gonna be a good few months to come

 

[A Life Aloft]

We have to be very vigilant about yellow jackets, especially in the Summer months and as soon as a nest is found/located anywhere on the property, I call out the exterminator. Those bastards will come after the hives, butterflies, animals and so many other insects. I hate them. Plus, they are super aggressive with humans and their stings really hurt.

A funny story....................I hadn't had the ranch long, had the first pre-fab homes delivered and we had moved on the first set of Vets. They were mostly Vietnam Vets with the exception of my long time friend Bob, a retired Air Force mechanic/maintenance supervisor at Edwards. He was out here as we were getting the machine shop large building and all the equipment/machinery in shape, setting up an inventory system, ordering new parts, organizing the fluids and parts etc.

So they find a big nest of yellow jackets under one of the eaves of the roof at the front of the large animal barn where the horses and donkeys (and now also two mules) are housed. Instead of telling me, they build from scraps around the machine shop, a fricking working blowtorch. Bejebus! They were so proud of themselves too. They traipse out there and set the nest on fire, had a water hose and a portable extinguisher with them (thank God) and a tall ladder. They burned the nest out and knocked it to the ground, managed to dodge the pissed off yellow jackets in the process, (probably set a few of them on fire with the blowtorch for all I know) but they also singed the area on the barn, which we had to then repair and repaint. Then they come to tell me about and show me the "awesome" blowtorch, etc. I get out there and see the damage to the barn and made them dismantle the damn blowtorch and made them promise not to ever build another one. They were so disappointed that I didn't share their excitement over the thing. lol

 

[KLB]

Suppose you had a good 25,000 sq ft of yard, in partially shaded to full afternoon sun, that is currently overgrown with fiddleheads, some blackberry bushes that are trying to re-establish themselves, and a bunch of wild grass and (seasonal) wildflowers. Would this be a good place to clear out and then potentially plant a wildflower/insect paradise? I'm looking for something that will outgrow the incessant regrowth of blackberries and other weeds that just want to turn the area into a jungle. I don't think grass is a very good choice, since I already have plenty of that. I've also considered wild salal since it grows extensively here.....

I'd be making all the blackberry cobbler I coult eat! Blackberry infused vodka is great also!

My neighbor has a tree/overgrown bush that potrudes over the fence into my lawn. I purposely don't trim it much because it attracts lots of butterflies and bees!

 

[Minuteman]

The moths, they are also prolific pollinators (possibly more than beesums?)

I'll always look for an excuse to share Tony Santoro's channel.

AFAIK, his day job is driving trains for UP.

 

[A Life Aloft]

One of the nicest areas to view the Monarchs here in California during their migration to Mexico, is Pismo State Beach. Anytime between mid November and mid February.

 

[A Life Aloft]

Suppose you had a good 25,000 sq ft of yard, in partially shaded to full afternoon sun, that is currently overgrown with fiddleheads, some blackberry bushes that are trying to re-establish themselves, and a bunch of wild grass and (seasonal) wildflowers. Would this be a good place to clear out and then potentially plant a wildflower/insect paradise? I'm looking for something that will outgrow the incessant regrowth of blackberries and other weeds that just want to turn the area into a jungle. I don't think grass is a very good choice, since I already have plenty of that. I've also considered wild salal since it grows extensively here.....

@///AMG Put in some different varieties Milk Weed as that is the only plants that the larvae and caterpillars will eat and the Monarchs will lay their eggs in the Milkweeds. Plant these and you'll attract the Monarchs and also some species of Hummingbirds:

• Zinnia Flowers. Zinnias add multi-bursts of color to your garden with their showy blooms. ...
• Agastache 'Ava'
• Mexican Sunflowers. ...
• Milkweed. ...
• Brazilian Verbena. ...
• Dwarf Butterfly Bushes. ...
• Callistemon spp. (bottlebrush) and
• Dwarf butterfly bushes

 

[A Life Aloft]

Awesome!
The flowers will give them nectar but they will search for miles looking for milkweed To lay their eggs.
Plant milkweed and they will come!

We collect the Monarch eggs to protect them from ants. This way we raise the caterpillars in a controlled environment so they don’t fall victim to Tacnid flies (#2 threat to Monarch population).

View attachment 64631
sorry, couldn’t make this picture smaller for some reason.……

Awesome!!!!

 

[BaronPete]

I won’t hold my breath, but this seems like it would be an excellent opportunity for Delta to right a wrong and net some overall positive imagery out of it. A donation or participation for some apiary project, etc. But, more likely, just pay the owner some lost cargo fee and hope it works it’s way out of the news cycle while spending millions on a new canned sustainability video for us to watch in the seatback.

This isn’t so much an indictment of Delta as it is the generally uninspiring way major companies virtue signal, but shy away from corporate decency for fear of admitting fault or receiving bad press.

 

[A Life Aloft]

I won’t hold my breath, but this seems like it would be an excellent opportunity for Delta to right a wrong and net some overall positive imagery out of it. A donation or participation for some apiary project, etc. But, more likely, just pay the owner some lost cargo fee and hope it works it’s way out of the news cycle while spending millions on a new canned sustainability video for us to watch in the seatback.

This isn’t so much an indictment of Delta as it is the generally uninspiring way major companies virtue signal, but shy away from corporate decency for fear of admitting fault or receiving bad press.

Couldn't agree more, but then I've never heard of them donating to any animal shelters considering how many dogs and cats have also perished in their "care", either.