Photographic Evidence!

As I had noted before, there seems to be a pair of Carnals which hang out around my hives, and snatch bees as they pass by. Today had been raining, so I figured there wouldn't bee too much activity in the apiary, allowing me to get close for a photo without having to bother with the usual veil. (A sting to the scalp is quite painful...) I heard the cardnal peep and looked to see it perched in the lime tree. It hopped and glided over to about 9 feet from the nuc, hopped its way through the mostly-dead bleeding hearts vine, and stopped less than a foot from the entrance to the Italian hive.

It paused there for a few seconds, before taking off and with a steep swoop upwards and back, it grabbed a honey bee just as it was either leaving or coming back to the hive. I figure any impact they'd make on the hive would be minimal, so why stop 'em? If anything, it's interesting to watch. Also, for the sake of comparison, I took a photo from the corner of the hive entrance, like I used to do when I first got it.

April 13, 2008


Early July, 2005

The bees seem to now be able to more effectively clean the entrance, due to a higher population. I even shot a video on August 28, 2005...and as of today, have uploaded it. By this time, they had grown enough to washboard a fair bit, but this is really better than any text-based description I can give it.