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Description:
The honey bee is about 12 mm (1/2 inch) long and usually yellow, with
3 or 5 dark brown abdominal bands. They carry two pairs of wings and lack the constricted
abdomen (wasp waist) of the wasp and hornet. Honey bees can sting, but are much
less aggressive than wasps and hornets.
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Honey Bee hard at work inside its bee hive
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Life Cycle:
It takes 21 days for the honey bee to develop into a "hive bee"
upon hatching from the egg. The "hive bee" spends the next 21 days doing
hive chores and feeding larvae. After the "hive bee" period, the bee passes
into the category of "field bee," or forager. These are the bees who leave
the hive to return with nectar, pollen and water. In the height of nectar flow,
these bees wear their wings out from flying and die within three weeks.
Swarms:
When a colony becomes overcrowded, the "field bees" gorge on
honey and leave the hive with the queen bee to establish a new colony. Because they
are gorged on honey, they are not generally aggressive and pose no threat to humans
if left alone. A typical swarm may contain thirty to fifty thousand bees and will
constitute a definite loss to the beekeeper whose apiary they have left.
Eradication Of Honey Bees:
For removal of honey bee hives in exposed situations outdoor the best
method is to pinpoint the hive with a torch light beam on it & apply jet spray of
aquatic emulsion of pesticides using a pressure pump profusely drenching the hive
with the emulsion. This will kill all the bees in the hive. Hive will also become
very heavy due to water & within few hours will fall to the ground by itself, which
can be cleared next morning. At rare times it may be necessary to spray pesticide
again if certain moribund bees are found hovering around the hive. The hive should
be collected in a bag & burnt. The dust formulation of pesticide may be used when
the nests are in the enclosed spaces. Dust will also move with the bees as they
move in the colony & kill other individuals. Once the bees are killed as may be
noted by the absence of swarming bees the wall of the spaces should be opened &
comb removed at the earliest otherwise there is a risk of other insects being attracted
towards honey, which will run down from the hive & made the area messy. Carpenter
bees, bumblebees can be controlled using dust/aerosol formulation by applying it
into galleries through entrance point & plugging this point so as to prevent escaping
of the bees. Spray treatment with residual pesticide be carried out around the galleries
to control the bees that might have returned to the area. Pyrethrins may be used
as aquatic emulsion, dust formulation or aerosol application for such treatment.
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