# Would a survey like this be useful?



## winevines (Apr 7, 2007)

enjambres said:


> I was thinking of doing a survey of the location of all managed hives in my area, and then trying to locate any free-living, or unmanaged colonies to determine the density of the "feral" honey bee population. Does anybody know of any studies or previous surveys like this?


 Dr. Debbie Delaney was part of a feral mapping project
http://www.savethehives.com/
There may be others, but this is a start


----------



## JBJ (Jan 27, 2005)

http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/89/22/36/PDF/hal-00892236.pdf

How far is this from you?


----------



## Angler (May 23, 2013)

Thomas D Seeley presented information at the EAS Conference on feral hives he mapped and studied over a ten year period. I found it really interesting the parts that he mentioned about hive spacing (approx .5 miles apart), very similar amounts of hives were present each year in the forest he mapped, and the average height of a natural hive is about 30 feet up! A very fascinating part of his presentation was his mentioning on how to track feral hives using the box method to track bees!

Thomas Seeley's box method:
Place small boxes out in and around your area with small amounts of honey in them. Return to the boxes during a favorable part of the day in which bees will be out and about, and check to see if any have "found" your honey box. If no bees, try another location and another location. If bees are eating from your honey box, watch the direction they are flying off at, and then close the box with bees in it and walk 100 feet in the direction you saw them fly home in and open the box. Wait about a half hour and repeat until you find the feral hive!

Thanks Mr. Seeley for the wonderful presentation!


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Thanks for replies and resources! Tom Seeley's work is in the same state though more than 125 miles away in south central NY, while I am a bit farther north in extreme eastern NY, close to the border with VT. Though we would have a lot of similarities in terrain, vegetation, and depending on the logging history of the Arnot Forest, perhaps somewhat similar human-use history. 

I am just curious about the "native" (in a manner of speaking) level of feral honey bees, in my area. It was very surprising last spring when scarcely had I absorbed the fact that all my long-term unmanged bees living in the barn had simply disappeared that two more swarms arrived and claimed their cavities. Before the cut-out workshop could get itself scheduled, a third swarm arrived. I used to kid the owners of the bee-supply place that they were trying to increase sales by dumping the odd swarm out at the end of my driveway. It will be very interesting to see what happens at these highly-attractive sites this year.

And for SQCRK (although I was notified of your comment, it seems to have disappeared from this thread), a QDMA Co-Op stands for Quality Deer Management Association, a way some landowners are joining together to manage the deer herd for better deer health, reduced agricultural and forest damage and improved hunting quality. We are not hunters, however, so our farm is a sanctuary area within the co-op's committed properties. I am told that the QDMA movement is very popular in hunting circles; more info here: 
http://www.qdma.com. My husband is at our local co-op's winter meeting right now and is planning enlist the members to help identify feral bees sites they may know about.

Enj.


----------

