Unwelcome guest

After working the hives on Friday, I turned to gather my things to go back inside and discovered a visitor to my apple cider vinegar bottle. This wasp did not care if I smoked him/her (I tried to no avail) and generally looked menacing.

I left the vinegar jug outside overnight to allow the wasp to leave in his/her own good time.

By the way, most of the time now the hives look like the last picture. The bees are clustered in the center of the hive body to keep each other warm when the temperature is low and they are nowhere to be seen.

I miss them.

Dead Small Hive Beetle - Drowned in Vinegar

It was 79 degrees in Atlanta today so I could go into my hives to see how things are with the bees. I emptied both small hive beetle traps and replaced the vinegar with fresh. Here are the drowning victims from the Destin hive.

I saw these dead guys but only two SHBs running around on the inner cover. In Bermuda there were only five SHBs in the vinegar trap and two of them were swimming around. I smashed them with my hive tool after dumping them out of the trap and refreshed the vinegar there too.

It was exciting to see such a lowered number of SHBs. Maybe they were hiding in the lower hive body, but I usually see 30 or so in each hive on the inner cover. Maybe they don't like vinegar and don't like the colder weather.

When I closed up the hives and turned around to gather up my stuff, there was this lovely wasp on my vinegar bottle. I smoked him/her, but the wasp stayed right on the top of the bottle. Needless to say, I left the bottle on the deck and will get it tomorrow when hopefully the visitor will not be there!