There is a Queen bee walking about my garden covered in mites. Is there anything that I can do to get them off her please? I have now got her in a glass jug. Should I kill her and the mites?
RB I hope you see this as I don't want to keep her in the jug for very long.
i don't think there is anything that can be done for her, she is probably weakend hence why she was crawling around and not flying, i suppose to minamise her suffering you could kill her.
I found this on the web.
http://www.uksafari.com/bumblebees3.htm
I tried it out with the bee and about 50 -60 mites came off in the 6 dishes. However, there were quite a few still attached so I emptied the water out and tried again. Unfortunately the bee didn't survive the second lot of dipping. I know she was already on her last legs as she had been wandering around the same bit of garden for two days, unable to fly. In retrospect maybe I should have left her a bit to dry off prior to the second lot of dipping. If I had left her alone she would have died a long agonising death with those things sucking her dry. At least she had a quick end.
Well done on finding a solution, i have added it to my favorites for future referance. sorry that you weren't able to save her though, she probably didn't survive the dunking as she was probably weakened also from going two days with out food :(.
She was probably an old worker which had worn itself out, as they do, and could no longer fly. This time of year some worker bumblebees are almost as big as queens. I hadn't heard of dipping bees to get rid of mites, but I don't think I'm about to do it to an entire hive!
Good for you Pauline, at least you tried.
:-*
Ive bookmarked the page too.........thanks for the info Pauline.
Its a shame your bee didnt survive this time. Any you (and us now) find in future will be much luckier ;)