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Defensiveness of honeybee colonies of Apis cerana and Apis mellifera (actively balling the wasps but reduction of foraging) against predatory wasps, Vespa velutina, and false wasps was assessed. There were significantly more worker bees in balls of the former than latter. Core temperatures in a ball around a live wasp of A. cerana were significantly higher than those of A. mellifera, and also significantly more when exposed to false wasps. Core temperatures of bee balls exposed to false wasps were significantly lower than those exposed to V. velutina for both A. cerana and for A. mellifera. The lethal thermal limits for V. velutina, A. cerana and A. mellifera were significantly different, so that both species of honeybees have a thermal safety factor in heat-killing such wasp predators. During wasps attacks at the hives measured at 3, 6 and 12 min, the numbers of Apis cerana cerana and Apis cerana indica bees continuing to forage were significantly reduced with increased wasp attack time. Tropical lowland A. c. indica reduced foraging rates significantly more than the highland A. c. cerana bees; but, there was no significant effect on foraging by A. mellifera. The latency to recovery of honeybee foraging was significantly greater the longer the duration of wasp attacks. The results show remarkable thermal fine-tuning in a co-evolving predator-prey relationship.
I was installing a new queen last night to save a hive that has been queenless since February 7. I had accidentally killed the queen, hoped they would requeen themselves, but when opening the hive 10 days later found zero queen cells, Whether sealed or open, just 4-5 empty queen cups.
As per instructions, I transferred her from the shipping cage to a push in cage I had made. I was so proud of myself because the cage covered a good chunk of the frame, giving her a lot of space, her three shipped attendants, and a dozen sealed worker cells.
After a bit of searching, I eventually found the queen under a cluster of bees balled up in a corner of the brood box. To my amazement, she was still alive, although the bright yellow marking dot on her back was half gone.
The question was, what to do? I put her back in the mailing cage and blocked it off with candy,then laid the cage on the bottom hoping that a standard candy release could still be done.A handful of bees soon swarmed the cage walking around on the mesh cloth.
Hi Jerry, balling is like that thing in ice hockey when the whole opposing team pile on top of a player, or like a scrum in rugby. Twenty to fifty worker bees pile on top of the queen (or other target, such as a wasp). They then beat their wings very rapidly to generate body heat, and cook the target at the center of their pile of bees. Pretty common bee behavior.
Hi Olivia, I have experienced something very similar. The answer is to get her back into the mailing cage which you have done, the balling occurs usually when the colony either has not had long enough as a queenless hive or too long. By leaving her in the mailing cage for 2 days should ensure that she is accepted. But seeing that she no longer has her attendants you should inspect after 24 hours and place a drop of sugar solution on her cage just in case. Either release her manually and watch how the bees interact with her, or leave her to emerge from the cage and then inspect a couple of days later to check for her and/or eggs. I wish you the best of luck.
Hello Michael, I am new to bee serving, : ) and have recently found you, and your books I have 1-3 of your Practical Beekeeper.
I have learned and understood more from what you have written than in any of the other 3 bee books I purchased, just wanted to say thanks.
Brenda B.
Parrish,Fl.
Balling phenomenon, as a typical selective laser melting (SLM) defect, is detrimental to the forming quality. In this work, a detailed investigation into the balling behavior of selective laser melting of stainless steel and pure nickel powder was conducted. It was found that the SLM balling phenomenon can be divided into two types generally: the ellipsoidal balls with dimension of about 500 μm and the spherical balls with dimension of about 10 μm. The former is caused by worsened wetting ability and detrimental to SLM quality; the latter has no obvious detriment to SLM quality. The oxygen content plays an important role in determining the balling initiation, which can be considerably lessened by decreasing the oxygen content of atmosphere to 0.1%. A high laser line energy density, which can be obtained by applying high laser power and low scan speed, could enable a well-wetting characteristic. The effect of scan interval on balling initiation is not obvious as long as the scan track is continuous. The surface remelting procedure can also alleviate the balling effect in a certain extent, due to the melting and wetting of metal balls. Moreover, the balling phenomenon of pure nickel was also studied, and the results implied that the balling discipline had a universality.
I don't have an explanation for you, but a friend and I spent last Saturday washing, dressing, claying, polishing, and coating his '07 GT500. He's the second owner and I don't think the car had this done previously, so we went with Compound and Microfiber Pads. No balling-up at all, but we did note a bit of elbow grease required to wipe polishing residue off. Didn't help that his car is white, so it hid a lot until/unless looking at just the right angles. While the Compound did a good job correcting, I did not like how (reltively) difficult residue removal was.
This particular car even after a good clay ( another post , stubborn contaminates) had mega bumps under the baggie test, but yet some to hand touch and also while claying very smooth with no sighs or sounds of contaminates present. So was wondering if that would cause "balling/gummy" polish being spit out.
Balling up is when the snow starts sticking to the bottom of your crampons to the point that the crampon points are no longer touching the surface. As one can imagine this is a rather dangerous situation.
I usually dislodge snow by kicking something: a rock, tree, some ice, or by stomping on a patch of hard ground. Kicking toe first into the snow can dislodge it as well, but often it depends on the type of snow. Using your tool to smack your crampons may work, but it can do damage to both your tool and your crampons, so it's not the best thing to do.
At first I was just being cheap, but then I discovered that one of the merits of using crazy carpet plates is that they aren't rigid, so the snow can't get packed up inside your crampons as well because the "plate" deforms slightly with each step, dislodging the snow.
The carpet plastic isn't as durable as a solid anti-balling plate, but considering you can get about a dozen pairs out of one $5 carpet, I think you can afford to cycle through a few pairs. I'm still using the first pair I made, and I've been climbing with them a couple of winters now.
Anti-balling plates for CAMP crampons help prevent snow buildup that can be dangerous. If snow accumulates under the sole of your boot, it will prevent the crampon spikes from gaining full purchase into the ground which can then lead to slipping. These Virbram rubber plates are designed to shed snow and help avoid this situation. Some people prefer to simply knock their boots together to drop any snow, which also can be effective if you notice the buildup in time. All plates are sold in pairs. Weights are as follows:
Update 2018: CAMP is now offering "dynamic" plastic anti-balling plates which flex as you walk which helps to shed snow off the anti-stick surface. They attach with loops over the front points and metal plates & screws to lock them in the rear.
his article is admittedly fearmongering on the part ofyour friendly neighborhood corn specialist, but I figure it is my prerogativeand responsibility to do so when I believe conditions are ripe for thedevelopment of a potential crop problem. If the problem does not occur, thengrowers will be relieved and they will forget I said anything about it. If theproblem does occur, then I will look pretty smart for having forecast itsdevelopment.
The potential problem of which I speak is a phenomenontraditionally called 'silk balling'. I prefer the name 'scrambled silks'because I think it is more descriptive. The problem is one in which silkelongation, prior to their emergence from the husk leaves, is interrupted oraltered, resulting in a mass of scrambled silks near the tip of the cob thatnever fully emerge from the husk. Obviously, any silks that fail to emerge fromthe husk will not exposed to any pollen and consequently will not contribute tothe formation of kernels on the cob. The net result is some degree ofbarrenness on the cob and, consequently, lower yield.
Scrambled silks is a relatively infrequent problem and its causes arenot well understood. Some believe that the occurrence of cool nights (low 60'sor cooler) prior to silk emergence plays a role in the development of scrambledsilks. Others believe that rapid changes in temperature patterns (e.g., verywarm to very cool) prior to silk emergence encourages the problem. Hybrids withnaturally tighter husks seem to be more susceptible to developing scrambledsilks.
Given these opinions on temperature factors that may contribute to theproblem, one could speculate (some would say fearmonger) that recent unusuallycool nights throughout the central and northern parts of Indiana, plus thecurrent forecast for more of the same, may lead to an increased occurrence ofscrambled silks this year.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about preventing oravoiding the problem. Nonetheless, it would be prudent to walk some of yourfields during or after pollination and look for evidence of the problem.Typically, the severity of the resulting poor kernel set is low andconcentrated near the tip end of the cob. However, I've seen situations in thepast where scrambled silks resulted in severe barrenness in nearly 1/3 of theplants in a field.
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