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Mouse house

PostPosted:11 Jan 2021, 09:07
by AdamD
Here's a couple of photos of a WBC where a mouse took up residence this winter.
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It had stripped the foil insulation off the polystyrene except where the brick was. THe mouse scurried away into the flowerbed nearby.
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Re: Mouse house

PostPosted:11 Jan 2021, 09:46
by Patrick
Interesting place for a nest and so not a total disaster then!

Unlike when I left a stack of overwintered supers without a cownboard or queen excluder at the base. The chewed combs were obviously a right off as were their associated poo stained combs and frames. Basically everything bar the upper couple of supers (the nest was mid stack) was deemed a right off. As they were all 8 to a box fat combs took a while to get back to square one. A mistake i hope I only make once.

Noticed a really high number of wintering and breeding woodlice above my crownboards this year. Literally hundreds if not thousands. Always notice a few but this year they are going for it. Not doing any harm. Only noticed a couple of hibernating queen wasps however.

Re: Mouse house

PostPosted:11 Jan 2021, 17:37
by Chrisbarlow
It's always nice Adam when folks start keeping new pets :D

Re: Mouse house

PostPosted:25 Jan 2021, 10:42
by AdamD
More mice..
Checked the varroa tray of another WBC yesterday; one that is just 3 metres from the one shown above. There's mouse droppings that have fallen through the mesh floor. Lifting up the crown-board, I could see that the bees were clustered nicely. So do I leave them alone or investigate further?

Re: Mouse house

PostPosted:23 Feb 2021, 14:11
by AdamD
At the weekend it was warm enough to locate the mouse that had taken up residence in a WBC hive. I lifted the brood box off the super and the mouse shot out; the only damage was 3-4 frames in the super where the nest was. The colony was alive and well although on the opposite side of the box to the mouse nest. I did sneak a quick look and there was some sealed brood and the marked queen. I adapted a mouse-guard to keep the thing out and put the brood box back as the super was empty of stores; I'll clean that up later. There was not too much food available to them so some fondant was put on.