Honey bees

[Hog Wally]

question about bees. We were tied off under a giant sycamore yesterday. There was a hole in it where honey bees were under attack but we couldn't identify the killers cause it was up to high but they were falling in and around our boat missing wings and body parts. Kinda sad.

[Bird Watcher]

I think hornets and yellow jackets will attack a bee colony.

[Hog Wally]

It looked like hornets. They were murdering the honey bees at an alarming rate. The sunfish were capitalizing on the wounded

[Hog Wally]

I thought there was a bee guy on this forum

[Ham]

I thought there was a bee guy on this forum

There is.

[jdmidwest]

If anything it was probably hornets, they can work bees over pretty good. Their jaws are large and can rip bees up pretty good. Yellow jackets are smaller than honey bees and they can handle them pretty well.

Did you actually see the activity around the opening? Bees carry out their dead and dying, they could have just been cleaning.

Jaybirds will eat the butt portion and leave heads and wings also. They crave the sweet honey in their honey stomach.

[Hog Wally]

It looked like bald faced hornets swarming the den hole and honey bees that were chopped up were falling everywhere. I love honey bees so it was pissing me off.

[jdmidwest]

They will probably be alright, there are about 30 thousand or more in a typical hive. They can loose a few hundred and not miss any. Here is a pic of the daily flyers hanging out on a hot afternoon, the hive is still pretty full of bees.

[jdmidwest]

I have no idea why that pic rotated, it was straight in preview.

[Hog Wally]

I guess I've been watching to much discovery channel and seeing these foreign invaders killing native bees. I grew up around bees as a kid and always kept in my memory every hive in every tree I found across miles of ozark ridges I hunted for squirrels I purposely routed my squirrel jaunts to check em yearly and see which ones had been raided.