Do Dragonflies Eat Honey Bees?

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Tim Aure

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May 7, 2021, 8:39:20 PM5/7/21
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😳
https://youtu.be/8UH07xhg6bo


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Scott Johnson

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May 8, 2021, 7:47:01 AM5/8/21
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He's not eating him, he's torturing her to give up the secret code to enter the hive. She didn't talk.

Scott

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Excuse brevity.
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Tim Aure <timoth...@gmail.com> schrieb am Fr., 7. Mai 2021, 19:39:
😳

https://youtu.be/8UH07xhg6bo


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Hannu

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May 8, 2021, 8:24:33 PM5/8/21
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Phhh, that was kind of hard to watch!

Joseph Bessetti

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May 8, 2021, 9:30:46 PM5/8/21
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I had about 7 dragonflies hanging out near my hives late last summer.  They would pick off 1 or 2 workers a day each.  14 workers is very small compared to the number of new workers that emerge every day.  

I was happy to see them as in 15 years I hadn't seen so many, and they did no real harm to my colonies.

Joe



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Paul Zelenski

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May 8, 2021, 9:39:17 PM5/8/21
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Yeah, they only become an issue when they start eating your queens as they’re mating. 

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Greg V

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May 8, 2021, 10:11:26 PM5/8/21
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That's why you always mate more queens than really needed.
Never 100% success - because the young queens are very tasty.

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trex raptor

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May 8, 2021, 11:10:17 PM5/8/21
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Dragonflies are one of the most successful predators, they kill 95% of prey they go after. My experience is that your mating return will go from 80% down to 50% when dragonflies show up. I will see them doing laps around my mating yards during the wet weeks in the spring/summer. No love for dragonflies here.


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Tim Aure

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May 9, 2021, 6:24:48 AM5/9/21
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So, I would think a mating yard would be (best) not put close to a wetland, where dragon flies emerge from... like squirrels playing on the road vs up in the trees?
The "odds" as Trevor says work towards less success of getting a mated queen. 🤔😐

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On May 8, 2021, at 10:10 PM, trex raptor <trexb...@gmail.com> wrote:



Paul Zelenski

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May 9, 2021, 10:08:51 AM5/9/21
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I do have one mating yard close to a wetland that has great success fir my early splits and low success later in the year. I suspect dragonflies. They’ll be mating next week. Hopefully that’s early enough. 

On May 9, 2021, at 5:24 AM, Tim Aure <timoth...@gmail.com> wrote:

So, I would think a mating yard would be (best) not put close to a wetland, where dragon flies emerge from... like squirrels playing on the road vs up in the trees?

Mark Evans

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May 9, 2021, 2:29:40 PM5/9/21
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Like any predator/prey situation, these things so much depend on the current relative abundance of prey species and what is ready to eat them.  It's also more likely that the larger Aeschnid dragonflies are more apt to take a honeybee, if they encounter one, if some other good munchable is not available (although some other mid-sizes species may, too).  Also, when people see large numbers of dragonflies, such as when some Libellulids emerge somewhat synchronously in places near mid-summer, or when Aeshnids are migrating through in a swarm in the fall, one can get the false impression that an area always has lots of dragonflies.  Like most things Mother Nature lets us glimpse, or we just happen to temporarily notice, it can be more complicated.
Mark

From: "Paul Zelenski" <paulze...@gmail.com>
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Sent: Sunday, May 9, 2021 9:08:47 AM
Subject: Re: [madbees] Re: Do Dragonflies Eat Honey Bees?
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