Reputation

Sometimes, it is a good thing to be known for your work.  When I was first trying to get into beekeeping, I talked to anyone I could find, trying to get the word out that I would pick up swarms and re-home them. I gave out my phone number, I made up cards and handed them out, I talked to officials and wrote blog entries and tried everything I could.

My phone insisted on not ringing.

As I have done more jobs, I have had word of mouth spread a little.  More people know that I remove bees from houses, as people who have had bees removed start to tell others.  It is a slow process, but one removal at a time, the word gets out.

Sometimes, it is a good thing to be known for your work.  And then, there are the times that you build a reputation without meaning to.

I was in a meeting today with some folks from the Vicksburg District, whom I have known by reputation, but had never met.  We are talking through the different parts of the water resource problem they are trying to solve, and we get to the end of the conversation.

I casually ask if he has a side hustle as a pest control guy.

He was.  Is no longer.

Someone else brings up that as long as he doesn't spray the bees, I will be happy.  They explain that I keep bees.

(Side note - I have a self-imposed rule that I am no longer allowed to provide unsolicited bee facts - my colleagues have been patient so far, but there is only so much listening-to-the-five-year-old-reciting-dinosaur-facts that should ever be allowed in the workplace.  I have, therefore, given myself a bit of a stick...)

Now that I have been prompted, I start to explain.  And we talk about bees for a while - he was a hobbiest beekeeper and enjoyed the process...   and sudden-like, Johnny leans back in his chair a little and says,

"You know, it was the craziest thing.  I live over in Belle Meade (my neighborhood), and one day I was out in my yard and I saw a guy in a truck in a bee suit."

There was no way to change the topic of conversation at this point.  And there was no way that I was going to get out of this story unscathed.  I knew the event he was referring to before he told the story.

"All of a sudden, the guy jumps out of his truck and starts swinging his arms around, swatting at bees.  It was the dangdest thing.  After a while, he had shucked the suit off, slung it in the bed of the truck, hopped in the cab and took off."

All of my co-workers were staring directly at me.  I avoided eye contact through the whole story.

Finally, my shoulders slumped ever so slightly. "It was me."

That day, I had opened my most successful hive, with the intent of stealing a single frame of brood to help out a struggling hive down the road. The girls were in a bad mood that afternoon, and no sooner had I opened the hive than they boiled out, intent on my destruction.

It just so happened that I had not done a full inspection of my gear before suiting up to rob the hive.  And I had failed to notice a small tear in the mesh covering my face.  The boiling-mad bees stung my unprotected hands a number of times, and I take my frame of brood and flee.  They follow with the fury of a toy-deprived two-year-old, screaming at me and hitting any soft spot they could.

I brush as many off as I could, and I hop in the truck.  Too many bees still occupy my space, and they are still mad.  I have no opportunity to unmask, so I start driving, window cracked, and the bees are STILL furious.  Still intent on our mutually assured destruction.

A block down the road, a bunch of them have worked their way through the slit in my veil, and start congregating on my face.  Hitting me, sitting on me, pointy side down. Every one of them taking great delight in the pain that they can inflict.  I took a few stings in stride.  I never think of it as the fault of the bee:  I was too rushed;  I was clumsy;  I moved them into a place they didn't want to be.

But these girls?  These girls were hot.  And they hunted me down, and made me pay.

The sixth sting on my face convinced me that whatever it was I was hoping for was not going to happen.  They were not going to calm down.  They were not going to leave me alone.  They were not going to fly peacefully out of the window.  I slammed on the brakes in the middle of the intersection, and jumped out of the truck.  It was at this point that I was observed by Johnny, flailing and swatting and screaming curses to the sky.

In the words of Mark Twain, Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of this scene.

Years I have spent, trying to gain a reputation.  I have even invited coworkers to work with me, to see how a calm demeanor really makes all the difference with working with bees.  I have done careful work, making sure to clean up after every job, taking the stings in stride, learning to work with the bees, trusting the bees, understanding the bees....

Now the only mental image that anyone in my office will have of me is of a cartoon - the guy whose bully bees beat him up in his own truck.

Love on the Battlefield

The setting of the National Cemetery at the Vicksburg National Military Park is one of the most peaceful ones imaginable.  The rolling loess hillside, graves in neat rows, each section terraced to provide a continuity among the gathered dead.  Oak trees, expanded to their full canopied width.  Magnificent magnolia trees, filled with heady blossoms.  Ancient crape myrtles and ginkgoes filling in the space.

And one very large downed tree, two terraces distant from the road.

Captain Dan Harder, a friend of mine from my time in Puerto Rico, texted me just before Memorial Day.  "Was at the national cemetery this morning putting flags out; apparently they have a giant tree that fell during the storm they can't remove because it's full of honeybees."

I had a quick conversation with the Superintendent of the park, and confirmed that they were interested in having my help.

Turns out that the giant tree was really a bigger job than I was able to do solo.  Everything I have worked to date has been able to be cut through with a reciprocating saw.  This sucker was far bigger than that.  Fortunately, Aaron Matthews, a friend of mine from work, is looking to get into bees, and offered his chainsaw prowess to the task.

Chainsaw work on the fallen tree stopped where the bees began.

Recon visit didn't tell me much, other than the size of the tree and the size of the entrance.  This is where it gets interesting.  If the bees are only in the very front of the entrance, and fill a space a little bigger than a breadbox, then I don't need to have a chainsaw.  But if it extends back further, I will need the help.

I veiled and reached in to pull out some of the debris in the entrance.

The bees, not unexpectedly, were more attached to their debris than I had anticipated.  Several expressed their displeasure in a very firm manner.

Signs of aggression, check.


Who could blame them?  The opening that they had was a knothole 20' up in a tree.  Now it is basketball- sized hole at a level that any passer-by could reach in easily.  That kind of situation would put any of us on edge.

I returned a week later to try again.  By now, the numbers had increased, and they had covered over some of the external comb with propolis, and they were even more ready to take swift action than before.

Bees covering the full entrance to the hive.

The wood has started to deteriorate, and is soft and crumbly.  They won't be able to stay here much longer anyway.  And as soon as the National Park Service can get the honeybees out, they can take away the tree and dispose of it, and straighten up the graves that were knocked around when the tree fell.

The interior of the log is covered with bees on every surface, and I did not have a way to figure out how deep it goes. 

Only one way to find out.  Reach the hand in and start cutting comb out.  And keep reaching in until there is no comb left.  The hope, of course, is that I don't run out of reach before I run out of comb. As soon as I have cut comb as far as I can reach, we have to move to using the chainsaw.

If the bees do not like people messing with the debris at the entrance to the hive, they REALLY don't appreciate solid chainsaw work.

The all-important selfie.  Obligatory.

One more visit yielded only a little more information.  The bees definitely extended further than I had originally thought.

Saturday started off cool and overcast, which meant the bees slept in, waiting for things to warm up before heading out to forage.  At 9 am, Aaron and I arrived, chainsaw and shop vac in tow. With a borrowed generator from the Military park folk (thanks for coming out, Auston!) we got started.

The initial foray into the hive was daunting. I have been chased by bees before, and I have had an entire hive mad at me before, but this was impressive.  The bees just boiled out of the hive, and enveloped both of us in a cloud of bees that overwhelmed us from the first cut of the comb.

I guess it makes sense.  The bees had been safely ensconced in a tree, safe from the elements and from predators.  I imagine that they lived a peaceful life, with no particular aggression needed to keep them safe.

Then suddenly, as Auston put it, God got mad at 'am, and suddenly they are living in a log that turned their hive 90 degrees on edge, and opened both entrances to the elements.  And to predators.

Auston told us, "Since they can't get mad at God, so they get mad at you."

And get mad, they did.

I looked down and did a quick count.  60 stingers in the back of my glove. Where I leaned forward to reach into the hive, the bees stung my cheeks through the veil.  Four times.  Another half dozen stings hit my hands through my double-thick leather gloves as I reached in.

For an hour, I cut away at inaccessible comb while Aaron helped keep the smoker fueled and fired up to help calm the horde.

Before the log fell, the bees had drawn comb vertically in the hollow of the trunk.  When it fell, that comb is now horizontal - not the bees' preferred position. So they sucked the nectar out, abandoned the use of those parts of the comb, and began drawing comb from the top of the log, and connecting it to the now unused comb stacked at the bottom.

Cross combing

Even so, they maintained the spacing that they needed to do basic housekeeping. So everything is stable, but also built at cross angles to everything else.  Cross angles make it impossible to remove comb cleanly.

And the bees that are now defending the wide open entrance are VERY defensive.

After the first cuts were completed, we pulled enough brood comb to start the bees in their new digs.  Once the box was filled up, we transferred all the comb to Aaron's new bee yard, and ran the vacuum for the first (of three) times, collecting some 15,000 bees in the process.  All of whom got transferred to their new hive.

Very quickly, I ran out of space to work, and Aaron started up the chainsaw.  The top entrance of the hive was quickly liberated, and the entrance in the base of the log widened, so that I could get at more of the comb.

Video taken with a potato....

Twice more, we smoked the bees to the entrance, and twice more, we removed the bees with the vacuum, transferring them to the new hive.

Final step was to feed the honey back to the bees, so they could use it to build the comb in their new box.

I used my newly-acquired Square (TM), and received the agreed-upon funds from the National Park Service. (#SquareOne, #contest).  The transaction was very smooth, and completed the full project perfectly. 

Bees defending high ground

In the final analysis, this was the most aggressive hive I have dealt with.  Possibly also the most bees.  Normally, once I get the entire area open, the bees will settle down and I can work more comfortably, in long shirt and pants with a veil.  These guys would have none of that.  I wore full gear the entire time.... only working without gloves towards the end.  Even then, the bees were feisty.

But I hope that gives them a fighting chance, as well.  We salvaged as much of the cross-combed brood as we could, with which they can raise more bees.  But even so, it might not be enough.    I'll be talking to some friends about installing a queen (we never spotted her) to help the hive establish.  But we'll give the 40,000 relocated bees a few days to build comb and make the hive their home.

And when we do, I'll update you all on the progress.


UPDATE:
"There are 3 bees left."

That was the message I got last night, four days after we removed the hive.  The bees absconded. A large number of them apparently died, within a couple of days of removal, and the bodies piled up.  And the remaining bees took off, leaving an empty hive.

I am going to get a handle on the relocation piece of this business one of these days.   It still seems like such a hit-or miss strategy I employ.  And sometimes it works.  Other times, not.  I usually come up with an after-the-fact explanation (too cold, too slow to move them, too long in the heat, induced robbing).  But the truth is, I am not always sure I know.  It is guesswork.

I need to guess better.

Pretender to the Throne

She has no claim on this throne, but she went in, nevertheless.

2 queens, 2 cages, 3 nurse bees to help out. 
$37.50 each.

Last Saturday, I bought a nucleus hive and two queens from my mentor.  (A recent flood had taken out a bunch of his 'nucs', and he only had one that he could sell me.)  But I had two different hives at the house that needed to be re-queened.  One had lost the queen because of an accident.  The remaining workers had hustled to raise up a queen, but with no success. Another was of a removal where the queen had not transferred.  I had tried to help both of the hives by sharing some brood from my successful hives, and had managed to keep the numbers high, but they had not had a queen successor to take over.

"Talk me through the process."  I asked my mentor for help.  Books are fine for background, but my bees don't read the same books, so I like being able to ask specific questions of people who do this professionally.

"First, go through the hive and make sure that you don't have any queen cells.  Then, spread your fingers like this (looks like a deck of cards between each of his fingers), and use that space between the frames to put this box in.  The workers will eat their way out, and the other workers will eat their way in.

"If, after four days, they haven't released her, pop it open and let her out manually."

Simple enough.  I had inspected the hives just the previous day, and there was no queen cell present.  It had surprised me a little - I had hoped that I would be able to avoid the $40 expense of buying a queen (each...).  But such is life.

I did as he said, and then left the hives for a couple of days.  The nuc I installed into a freshly painted hive, and left them running their lives on their own.  And this afternoon, I went out to release any queen that needed a little nudge.

First hive, opened up with a slight puff of smoke, and looked down into the hive.  The queen cage was still intact.  I pulled the tape off the edge, and pulled the plug - still filled with bee candy - and watched as the queen marched out and disappeared down the side of the hive.

Sweet success.

Emboldened by the ease by which I had just watched that happen, I opened the other hive, and peered inside.

Same story. The workers had not eaten through the tape and candy to release the beautiful queen.  So I repeated the process, cleared the dead bee from the entrance to the box (just like the first one) and watched as the fat-bottomed girl walked over the edge and disappeared.

Sweet success, part two.

I grabbed one of the other frames - one that she had NOT just walked down the face of, and glanced at it to see how much honey they had put on the frames.

Brood.

Wait.  Brood only happens if you have a laying queen.  There can't be brood in this one, because I don't have a...

OH, CRAP.

A gorgeous, fat, bright, yellow queen strolled across a frame of perfect brood.  I watched in horror as she walked to the edge of the frame and disappeared over the edge. I had just released a second queen into a perfectly functioning hive.  They HAD replaced the queen that had been lost.  And I had just spent 40 dollars needlessly.  Worse, I couldn't even go back and find the pretender.  Or the fat girl I had just seen.  They completely disappeared.

To clarify for those who don't know: one hive, one queen.  Honestly, I would have expected more resistance to the entry of the second queen.  But the other workers simply ignored her. So I don't know what happens next - whether there is a battle to the death, followed by a Quickening, or whether the newly introduced queen just gets ignored and starves.

But I can't worry about it too much. I have another removal tomorrow (for which I wish I had saved the queen) and another the following week.  I have to get ready.  And next time, when I am told to inspect to make sure there are no queen cells...

...you better believe I am going to do it, and that I am going to be thorough.  

Taking, Pried In my Work, with a Stinging Postscript

Back at it.

(If you just want to read about me getting stung repeatedly, skip to that part of the story at the bottom of the entry, under follow-up:)

I was determined today to remove the eave bracket and get at the honeybees inside.  Suited up, grabbed the crowbar, and started crowbarring.

The first part of the removal I attacked was the molding over the top.  It came out pretty easily, even with the 150-year-old cut nails holding it in place.  This action did not expose any bees to the elements, though.  Above the eave bracket was just a wood block, and above the block, open space.  And a lot of cobwebbing.

Next I worked on prying the bracket loose from the wall.  The more I pried, though, the more that it seemed that everything was giving way, while the eave bracket was holding firm.

One other thing occurred to me as I was tugging at it.  As I twisted and pried, the force of my effort was vectored away from me. Simple physics (PhuFy!). Problem is, there is nothing that could prevent it from breaking loose and falling over the edge, making it into a heavy metal block filled with lots of unhappy bees, unprepared to meet the ground with intense deceleration trauma.  In the process, the eave bracket, a lovely piece of 150-year-old cast iron, would meet an unhappy demise, as well.

Long journey home.

I had already requested that the people parked directly beneath the edge please move their cars.  But I really did not want to lose either bees or bracket.

So I tied off some string to the bracket, and tied it to another bracket, 15 feet away.  That seemed crazy flimsy, so I looked around for something else.  Finally went down to the truck (my fifth trip down 4 flights of stairs) and got a tie-down strap, and tied it off to the same adjacent bracket.

Tightened it down.

By this time, the bees are getting a little curious.  It is a cool day - temperatures in the high 40s - and they are reluctant to venture too far from the warm hive.

But as I started to pry... they got more excited.

I alternated prying and ratcheting, until I started to see it give.  Just a little to start off with, and then increasingly as I pried more.  Finally, it gave way, and dropped.  75 pounds of bees and cast iron and sand (Wait... sand??) and comb all fell and landed at my feet.  Removal with a bang.

It did not go over the edge.  Win.

The bees, however, did not consider this a win.  In fact, they considered it a very upsetting loss, and began to let me know about it in no uncertain terms.

I took the comb out, piece by piece, salvaging whatever I could so I could place it in the box that I had prepared for it.  By this point the bees had calmed down, as it was pretty chilly. Their focus was on getting as much of the honey out as they can, and balling up around the queen.

Who was elusive as she could be. Queen of hide-and-seek.

The sand inside was a bit of a mystery at first.  But when I looked at the inside of the eave bracket, there was a series of clay molded pieces inside - the work of dirt daubers.  Apparently, when the bees took over, they ousted the dirt daubers, and just built on top of the old mud... some of which dissolved and collected inside as a sand bath.

After cutting all the comb out, I took the eave bracket and placed it on top of the empty box, that had new comb interspersed in it.  With both cold and wet weather coming, I am skeptical of whether it will be good for the girls.  But I hold out some hope.

There was a little bit of honey remaining, and the girls had just started to put together some new stores after a long winter.  Since I removed those pieces, I will need to feed them to keep them going until they can do it on their own.

There is another hive at Duff Green Mansion.  In a couple of weeks, I will be able to get it, using a lift.  But from this hive, I was able to find out the piece of information that I needed to make that next one go smoothly.

There is a metal brace underneath the eave bracket that supports it.  This was the piece of information that I needed.  The bracket beneath holds the bracket in place, and once it is removed, the bracket comes loose.

My frustration in last week's attempt at this was that I had removed the bolts, but had not seen the brace.  So prying did me no good.  This time, brute force and ignorance won, but it also gave me the information I needed.  By removing the bolts, and removing the screws that hold the brace in place, I can easily remove it.

Maybe not easily hold it.  But definitely remove it.

Follow-up:

The night after removing the eave bracket and encouraging the bees to enter the box, we got rain.  Cold rain.  It was bad, and I was pretty sure that any bees that survived were going to be in bad shape.

So I decided to rob my healthy hive of one frame of nectar very quickly, so as not to disturb them too much.  Quick in, quick out, nobody will be too upset.

Wrong.  Very wrong.

Usually, when I am doing things with minimal impact, I'll put on a veil and maybe a long sleeve shirt. And sometimes I'll work without smoke.  This time, I took time to suit up and got my smoke going first.  Every precaution.

Those girls boiled out of the hive and started working on my suit, sacrificing themselves by injecting venom into the cloth with reckless abandon.

Eventually, one or two of them found a crease, and injected a little venom into a leg.  And an arm.  Then a shoulder.  Still they came boiling out.  Smoke did not deter them.

Then I felt a sting on my neck. I glanced down to see if I had managed to leave a gap in the zipper-velcro seal at my throat.  Nope.  But there she was, inside with me.  Still trying with every bit of energy she had to hurt, rip, damage the intruder to HER hive.

Then another appeared.  Walking across my throat, with similar intent.

Bees by the hundreds, covering mask.  Covering my jacket.  Covering every surface.  I cut my work very short, and left with the first piece of hardware I could pry free, closed up the box as quickly as I could, and fled.

They followed, grabbing on and stinging with evil glee.  More arm stings, leg stings, and five more bees in my bonnet.  (That expression was never more apt.) I dropped the frame with a slight amount of nectar into the back of the truck, and went back to rescue my smoker and tools.  When I did, the girls came back after me with renewed vengeance.

I had heard of hot hives, but this was the hottest I had ever experienced.  They were MAD.  Clearly, these girls had spent WAY too much time playing first person shooter games.  They didn't even care that it was just one bullet that they carried.

I shook off as many as I could, and got into my truck, still suited up, with bees all over me.  I cracked the window (weird fun fact: bees will leave if the window is cracked, but not if it is wide open), and a few bees made it out.

And then, one block down the road, the bees inside my suit all decided to get me at once.

I pulled over, jumped out, and stripped my suit, shaking off as many bees as I could.  Still they came after me.  One on my scalp.  Another at my throat.  And my eyebrow.  Now that my arms were bare, they were looking lasciviously at long expanses of exposed flesh.  Looking to do violence.  It was then that I noticed a hole in the mesh in front of my face.

Note to self: check mesh BEFORE getting into an altercation with defensive bees.  Not during, nor after.

I got back in the truck.

The whole trip back to Duff Green, bees flew at me while I was driving. I checked twice before going through the house, because I really didn't need additional angry bees introduced into the Bed and Breakfast.  Not good for business (either theirs or mine).

When I got up to the top, it looked like the bees had not made it.  I turned the eave bracket over, and there were no bees in the box.  Over at the wall, there were a pile of dead bees still attached to one another where the bracket had come down.

And so I turned the bracket over, and out tumbled a slightly damp mass of sad, unhappy bees.  But they were alive.  And the first girl to show up, right on the top, was Mary Lake, queen bee of Duff Mansion herself.  I grabbed a queen clip, trapped her quickly,  and dumped her in the box.

A few minutes later, I had swept as many live bees into the box as I could, and placed the stolen - and dearly paid for - frame of nectar into the box, and closed the lid.

Cleanup will come another day.

On the way home, more bees warmed up.  And they, too, stung me.

So I am writing up my results with one eye half swollen shut, and a silly grin on my face.  Those girls are going to do OK.  Lady Xoc is laying like crazy, and making some crazy bees to defend her turf.

First Job - FAIL (for the moment)

Last Monday I set aside the time to remove the bees from Duff Green.  Quick in, quick out, two hives of bees to relocate.

The result was awful. An unmitigated failure.

The space is not enough to get the hydraulic lift in, said Harley.  But, she said, we have some really long ladders - 60' or so.

OK.

About forty five minutes later, the 42' ladders showed up, and  we maneuvered them into place.  Even fully extended, we were going to be short.  I climbed the ladder, and about halfway up, felt that l'appel du vide - that horrible feeling that you are being drawn to the edge of something at a great height and feel that you are going to fling yourself off the edge.

On a ladder, for crying out loud.

Once I got to the top of the extended part of the ladder, it was obvious.  There was just no way.  We looked at it from about five different angles, and even a couple of angels. From the extension ladder, I would have to stand on top of the last rung.

Um.... nope.

The solution, without the lift, is to have to anchor a 12' step ladder to the wall on top of the narrow balcony.  Sturdy enough, but if I felt the fear of falling from the extension ladder, it was about to get a LOT worse if I tried it from the balcony.

So what do I do?

My next door neighbor is Jared.  He is my insurance agent (Kathe, sensibly, trusts his assessment of risk more than she trusts mine) and his willingness to try anything has made him an invaluable companion on the trips to evaluate bees. Even if he is decidedly NOT excited about bees.

We scoped out the second location - on the left side of the picture above (MORE BEES!)  It was decidedly more accessible.  From the roof, we dropped down onto the metal roof over the balcony.  From this vantage point, we got a better look at what was going on.

The cornice is right at the edge of the same drop.
Don't look down

As Kathe and I had figured earlier, the bees moved into the cornice/eave bracket/sconce.  But what I had seen the previous time....well, the removal of the faceplace of the cornice was going to be an easy job.

Heh.

The cornice is made of cast iron.  The faceplate is not hinged.  And it might be a single cast piece.  Glued, anchored in place, and immutable as bedrock.  Not budging.

Jared and I tried a number of ways.  We removed the two bolts.  We pried.  We hammered a putty knife into the joint. We pried at the wood molding above, and looked for an hour for any way to get in.  Nothing.

OK, time to change tack.

We smoked the bees and then tried to vacuum them through the hole.  They were having none of that.  That was my mistake - the smoke made them retreat deeper into the cornice, and we netted a total of one sad bee.

So even if I had gotten the lift, all I would have been able to do is to remove the external bees.  The bees inside would have stayed inside.

After we finally gave up for the day (and the week - it was raining a LOT this week), I started trying to research the architectural features.  There are multiple cornices on the house without bees in them, so I could test out any removal technique on one that was not hanging over the edge.  The consensus - from builders to architectural historians to economists (I don't know why the economist should have an opinion, but I really couldn't stop him from giving one) - is that there is just a lot of paint and glue - and the bolts - holding it in place.

I'm going to try again.  But as the weather gets warmer, the bees will be more active.  And more prone to defend their space against intruders like me.

If anyone has ideas, I am open.

Wish me luck.

The Flowers Appear on the Earth - Honeybee edition

With bated breath, I opened my hives this weekend.  Saturday was a warmer day for us, with temperatures in the mid-60s.  I watched the bees come and go from each of the three hives that had survived last summer and fall, and they were carrying loads of pollen into their homes.  My girls were busy.

So I read a lot about honeybees.  It turns out, though, that my reading material is the honeybee equivalent of Web-MD.  Every single article tells me that my hive is going to die, and that it is going to happen next week, regardless of symptoms.  Bees flying around?  The hive is gonna die.  Bees not flying?  Hive is already dead.  Pollen being carried in?  This early, it is probably coming from Carolina Jessamine flowers, which kills bees.  No pollen?  Death by starvation is imminent.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

My worry last week was that they would run out of honey stores before the flowers really started blooming. I have been reading all kinds of stories about bees that were active going into the last cold snap, and ran out of food.  Essentially, during the winter, the bees just consume, since there is nothing to replenish their stores.  Not exactly like they can head to the local Bi-Lo grocery and stock up.  The bees have to wait for flowers to pop.

So a hive can literally starve to death, even after the worst of the winter is over.

First warm day that came, I HAD to see what my girls were doing.  I needed to see three things:

1. Are the girls bringing in pollen - to fill their need for protein?  I already knew they were.
2. Do they have remaining honey stores, to tide them over for carbo-loading until the flowers start blooming?  This was my real worry.
3. Is the queen laying?  If she is reticent because she is trying to make the stores last until it is warmer, she might not have enough bees for the hive to survive when it gets warmer.

Short answer, my bees are OK.  On all three counts.

Traditional guidance is to leave honey on the hive the first year.  While your bees are establishing themselves, they need to keep all the honey so that you have a healthy hive to survive the winter.  The guidance kinda falls under the rubric of 'natural is best', and is not without its critics.  My mentor explained it to me: honey sells for $7.50 per pound.  Sugar sells for $0.33 per pound.  For me, he said, it is purely an economic decision. I will ALWAYS harvest any honey I can get, and feed the girls through the winter.

I believed him.  But I did not have enough confidence to follow through.  I joked that I was going to be leaving the honey in the hive the first year, just taking enough to let the girls know that their rent would eventually come due.  But after a year of rent-free living, I explained, I am going to harvest.

All the same, all winter I wondered whether it would be enough.

So the great reveal: when I opened the hives, all three hives had remaining honey stores.  I also got to see new stores being created, with uncapped honey in one box. Not a LOT of honey remaining - the flowers need to start blooming in earnest soon, so that my girls will be OK.  But there is enough, for now.

I did not specifically spot any of the three queens, but the evidence of what they were doing was clear.  In each box, there were between three and five frames with good brood patterns.  My three queens - Maggie, Isabella, and Lady Xoc - are all laying well.  

Even boys!  Lady Xoc laid a section full of male bees, which means she is ramping up genetic markers for the next generation.  (I might be a little happier if she was investing more in the girls, but if she is looking forward, I can, too). 

As the weather warms up more, I anticipate a spike - more eggs and more larvae and more activity, as everybody gets sent out to bring in more honey.

The only down side of the news was that small hive beetles were EVERYWHERE.  I have gone from being horrified at the presence of beetles to accepting them as a part of my hives.  But they still bother me (I wrote, then erased, 'they still bug me').  The truth of the beetles is much the same as the mites: killing a bug on a bug without killing the host bug is difficult.  

Somebody long ago explained that you don't use Beelzebub to cast out demons.  Most of the time, I feel like that is what I am facing.

I have a bag of diatomaceous earth, and once the ground gets dry, I will spread it around the hives so that the beetle larvae will crawl across the stuff and turn into larva jerky.  I have to be careful not to get it anywhere the bees will crawl - after all, I don't need honeybee jerky, as well.

Regardless, the outcome of the winter is solid good news. 

Finally.... I am starting to prepare for more.  New boxes, cleaning out old boxes, and spreading the word that I am available to catch swarms and remove bees.  I got some business cards made, to help spread the word.

A young friend of mine knows that I love bees, and he included a drawing of a bee in a recent card, which I have scanned and incorporated into my cards.  

Late-Season Removal

The bees were pretty aggressive.  That was a change.

The lift.  Bees were located between
the two windows on the right

Several months ago, Mrs. Joyce Clingan called me and asked me to remove the bees that were in the corner of her home.  We had planned to schedule the removal to coincide with the fixing of her gutters.  She already needed to rent the lift, so why not combine the tasks, and just rent the lift once?

Made sense.

Of course, the gutter repairs had been delayed, and life had intervened.  Now it was several months later, and had gotten to a time when translocating bees can be difficult, but.... it was also time for the bees to go.  So she simply went ahead and rented the lift. Friday morning, I gathered my materials, and went over to see if I could figure out how to use the machine that would make my life easier.

After spending a little while getting used to the controls, I got to work.  Having the lift beats the heck out of climbing a ladder and balancing everything at every step.  I started off with the prybar, and pulled loose the fascia board, to expose the first section of bees.

Bee stinger - removed from the author's nose....

Predictably, the bees were sincerely unhappy about this development, and reminded me repeatedly why it was a good idea to wear a suit and veil. They also expressed their displeasure with the innocent painter who was walking nearby, and sought me out to confer every time I took a break to get some water (one decided my nose looked like a potential new hive, and climbed in to investigate, and stung me when I objected.  Another worked her way under my baseball cap.  And stung me when I objected.  Yet another found the gap between my jacket and my pants, and my derriere experienced a sharp retort when I sat down.)

Peekaboo!

Trap Out!

It was time.

I have been putting off the job at the Vicksburg Auditorium for a while.  Partly because of the nature of the job.  Partly because the removal from the other side of the building (yeah, they had TWO hives) had not gone as I wanted it to (the bees moved inside the building, and made a mess, in a lot of ways).  And partly because of the height of the work, combined with a shaky ladder and NO place to grab hold.  

The job, as before, requires me to remove the bees.  From the inside of the auditorium, there is no way to get to the bees - no opening and no access to the interior of the wall.  From the outside, there was also no way to get to the bees - it is solid brick with a small hole.  But the bees need to be gone.  The city has planned a renovation job on the building next month that will put people in contact with the bees, and it is necessary to get the bees out before they begin.  

And so while I did other jobs in the area, I pondered the proper way to approach this job was.  I read.  I asked.  I talked it through.  And finally it was time.  I could not wait any longer to get started.

The idea behind a trap-out is to get the bees out of a wall that you cannot access any other way.  Part 1 of the trap-out is to create a one-way door so that the bees can leave, but not return.  The bees leave the hive to forage, and then can't get back in, and start looking for somewhere to be.  They end up congregating in the closest available space. 

That is where Part 2 comes in.  In Part 2, the beekeeper places a box nearby that the escaped bees can use as a new home.  Make it attractive, make it nice, and you can eventually evict all the bees from their current home, and they will be in the new mobile apartment that you can then move to a safe location (like my backyard).

There are some problems.  Problem #1:  The queen does not like to come out.  This is a big problem, because the queen lays a LOT of eggs every day.  She lays up to 2,000 eggs every day, which means that within the next few weeks, there are up to 42,000 bees in process.  As many as you draw out of the hive, she is going to replace them just as fast.  So the process can take a while.

Eventually, the nurse bees run through all of their honey stores, and they, as their predecessors did, leave to forage.  The queen only remains inside, unwilling to leave.

Problem #2: without the queen, the workers will bring honey and pollen into their new 'apartment', but they won't lay eggs.  You need a queen for that.  So the only way to proceed is to give the inhabitants of the new apartment what they need.  

To take care of problem #2, I opened a hive at the house and pulled out two frames.  One of the frames had eggs, larvae and capped brood, as well as a queen cell (the bees had prepared a queen, just in case).  The other frame had honey.  I put both frames in a 'nuc box' with three empty frames to give the new inmates neighbors a 'partially furnished apartment' - a little bit of a head start on increasing numbers.  And the right smell.

Now all I had to do was to install the art project.

Step 1.  Anchor the box.  Kathe and I had discussed it together, and ended up deciding that the best approach to anchoring a box to a flat brick wall was to throw an escape ladder over the top of the wall, and attach it to that.  So I put the 75-foot aluminum stepladder against the wall, and started the climb, with each aluminum step compressing below me precariously.  At the top, I grabbed on to the top of the wall and held on for dear life, while I tried to 'maneuver' the escape ladder into place without sending the 'man-over'.

Following the successful installation of the ladder, I climbed back down to get the next piece of the puzzle - the straps.  Because I am planning to leave these in place for a couple of months, I used tie-down straps to anchor the box to the ladder. I climbed back up, and attached them - with only one precarious wobble in the process.  That wobble did it - at that exact moment, I made a decision, and stated it out loud for nobody to hear.

"If anything starts to slip, I am letting it fall.  It is all replaceable.  NO heroic saves."  

Step 2.  Next, I needed to place the box in the strap loops. The box, while not heavy, was a little awkward and not well centered, and climbing the ladder with it was a challenge.  But with slow, steady motions, I got in place, grabbed the top rung of the ladder with an elbowlock deathgrip and tried to slide the straps over the box.  I got them in place, but they were loose, and I started to cinch them up.  

First one side.

Then the other. 

Then back again.

One of the straps overlapped, and I was about to get caught in a bind, so I switched hands and....

26 feet, end over end tumble.

No heroic saves.

Before I descended the ladder (no point in rushing) I adjusted the straps.  My wife suggested that she could go and get me some duct tape (why don't I have duct tape?) and drove off as soon as I was safely on the ground.  I picked up the pieces of the box and frames and put them back together.

Honey everywhere.  I can't tell how badly the brood are damaged, but I suspect none of them will remain viable.  And the box itself is a mess.

But duct tape fixes everything, so humpty dumpty got patched and taken back to the top of the ladder, where he was reattached to the escape ladder.  As I started to descend, I realized that the hole was facing the wrong way - away from the opening.

Ah, well.  The bees will find the opening or they won't.

I then moved to the final step.  Setting the trap.  

The idea for the trap is that the bees will come out of a cone over the entrance, but will not find their way back in.  And if there are two cones, one over top of the other, it will be twice as unlikely that they will find their way back in.  So I sealed up the entire hole, with one opening left open, with expanding foam sealer. Once complete, I set the smaller of the cones, made of screen wire, over the entrance and held it in place for the sealer to set. 

Then repeated for the outer cone, made of 18" hardware cloth.

The process took forever, during which time I was on the top of the ladder, surrounded by (surprisingly passive) bees, clad in multiple layers of a bee suit on a hot July day at noon.

When I released the cone, and it stayed in place, I hopped down the ladder and stepped back to observe.  The bees were emerging, and congregating around the entrance.  But it is too soon to see if they are able to get back in.  I will have to check back pretty regularly to see what is happening.

**Update 8 July - I have been monitoring the bees for the past few days, and there does not seem to be any activity on the new apartment.  And more importantly, perhaps, there does not seem to be a large cluster of bees on the exterior of the cone.  I suspect that they have figured a way around the cone, and I will need to re-seal.

When I do (scheduled for Thursday), I will see if I can't take more pics.  And I will replace the box.

Vacuuming the Bees

You meet with the person in charge of the auditorium, and are immediately put at ease by his easygoing demeanor and easy smile.  After showing you how to find the ladder, Mr. Artiss opens the door to let you hook up the vacuum.  You have coordinated with a co-worker to meet you and hold the ladder - Lee Robinson is fearless, and ends up being a perfect choice.

Hook up the vacuum to the bucket, with the mesh bag inside the bucket to catch the bees, hook up the other hose to the lid, and cinch the shopvac tight against the 7' ladder, and you are ready to go. You started at dusk, when most of the bees would be returning from the field.

I don't know if you know this, but you are VERY much afraid of heights.  And the 30' ladder provided by the City of Vicksburg is pretty rickety. But in the face of such predicaments, you forge ahead.  Because you have chutzpah.

Lee holds onto the ladder, which is wedged between the tree and the building.  And you begin the climb, squeezing between limbs and the brick wall, up three stories.  After tying off the bucket to the ladder, as high as it will reach, you grasp the hose, and give the signal to Lee, who turns on the vacuum.

And the bees begin to disappear down the gullet of the bee vac, making a satisfying sound as each gets sucked backwards.  (Your hose, however, creates a harmonic, resulting in a band-saw like scream that is painful on the ears.  Note to self: the next time you do this, you should probably bring some headphones).

After five satisfying minutes of watching bees get sucked into the machine, you realize you are leaning further and further in towards the entrance to the hive.

Oh, no.  Your vacuum doesn't suck.  Or, depending on your perspective, it does.

So you descend the ladder, carrying the bucket of bees to the ground.  And you transfer them to the spare bucket, an act that makes Lee hightail it away from your spot, as the bees emerge QUITE unhappy with you as a result of their journey.

Now that the bucket is cleared of bees, you ascend, and discover that the vacuum still sucks.  Or, rather, that it does not suck.

Darkness is coming.  You do not have illumination.  What do you do?

Keep working.  The hole won't change its location, so you can easily use your now-failing vacuum to not suck up angry bees in the dark while on top of a 30' ladder.  Click here.

Seal up all holes except for the one you are drawing from, and plan to try again tomorrow. Click here.

A New Day

It is a bright, new day, and you have it all figured out.

Overnight, you worried the idea over and over.  And finally decided on a course of action.  You are going to swap out your ShopVac for the one your wife has.  Hers is more powerful, and won't lose suction so easily.  You have installed the bees from last night's efforts into a new box.  There is a bit of unhappiness with the bees there, and a lot of casualties involved in the effort, but without a nearby hive to migrate into, they are mostly staying in the box.

After sealing all except the entrance you want
to vacuum, the bees begin to congregate

And, again at dusk,  you return to the scene of the crime.

7' ladder, up.  New, more powerful ShopVac plugged in, and secured.  Clean mesh bag in the retrieval bucket, connected to the vac with a hose, and secured on the tall ladder.  Hose connected to the top of the bucket.

You climb the ladder, and give Lee a wave.  He fires up the vacuum.

And, suddenly remembering the importance of the headphones, you give him the signal and descend.

Removing the gear, you put the headphones on, and put the veil and the jacket back on, and climb the ladder again.  Vacuum on, the bees start to get sucked into the bucket.  It is working.  Powerful vac FTW!

And five minutes later, with the sun dropping further on the horizon, you begin to noticing decreased suction.  Again.  Testing the hose on the back of your glove you confirm that your new vacuum sucks, as well.

Aw, crapola.

As before, you descend with the bucket-o-bees, transfer them to the spare bucket, re-climb the ladder and start it up again, and the vacuum declines to pick up any more bees.  At this point you are:

• High up an unstable ladder, with
• Angry bees all around, with
• A useless tool in your hand.

You are at a crossroads.  You are expected to complete the task in short order.  You want to get paid, but more than that, you want to complete the job. Which means, get the bees away from the people.  Into a new home is preferable, but if not, you are paid to remove the bees.

You have a choice.  You can:

Seal the hive up, resulting in killing them, or

Step back and try a trap-out.

Aluminum Screen

OK, you have decided to go with an aluminum screen cone.  Good call.  Aluminum screen is hardy, weather resistant, and a little bit pokey - so you can keep the bees from reentering.  So now you are off to the local hardware store to buy an $8 roll - the smallest available - of aluminum screen wire.  Pretty easy, and lots of replacement for when the first cone doesn't work.

You roll the cone as tight as possible, so that the bees can only get out one at a time from the tip of the cone.  You fray the edge, so that all the pokey edges are pointing outward, making it harder for bees to return. And you seal up all of the other holes with expanding foam sealer, so that the bees have to go through the cone to emerge.  The expanding foam sealer is goopy and sloppy, but after about ten minutes on the ladder (surrounded by very anxious bees), you can let go of the cone and it stays where it is.  A little bit extra foam around the base to ensure that all of the holes are sealed up, and you are good to go.

Now it is time to place your trap box.

Your concept: Take a small box, of a shape and size that will be attractive to a swarm of newly homeless bees, and give them a place to live.  Put frames in there, so that they can build comb, store nectar and pollen, and arrange living space.  And perhaps most importantly, steal a frame of brood with eggs and ready-to-emerge bees, from another hive, and put it in.

The bees will take one of the eggs, perhaps more, and turn them into queens.  At least, that is the theory.  And then you hang your box.

This is not a simple task.  You can't drill into the side of the building - it is historic brick.  Besides being hard to do, it is also a structure of cultural significance, and randomly drilling holes is frowned upon.

So you come up with two solutions: a) you can tie the box off to an anchor of some sort (you decide on a window weight from an old fashioned window - $5 at the antique store) or b) you can buy an escape ladder ($35 from your hardware store), and attach the box to it. (You decided on the escape ladder.)

You are using the cardboard box you got when you bought your bees, and there are three of them, so you are good on that front.  Now it is just a matter of anchoring it to the hanging ladder.  Do you:

Attach it using tie-down straps?  Click here,

or,

Attach it using bungee cords? Click here.

Keep Working - Night-Time Edition

You really aren't too bright, are you?

Bees stung you through the suit, you flailed in response, dropping the vacuum and falling off the ladder.  As you fell, you dislodged the bucket with the bees, which fell on top of you.

Your screams could be heard for miles.

Lee Robinson, who advised you not to continue, tried to catch you, but missed.  And once the bees broke loose, he ran for his life.  And then called 9-1-1 for you from a safe distance.

The emergency personnel tried to help you, but could not get past the bees.  They called a beekeeper from a nearby town to help, but by the time he arrived, you were already past saving.  Better luck next time....

Maybe the most awesome image ever. 
I need Windi Sebren to make me one. Stolen from this page.

Fortunately, Dead Beekeepers is a great name for a garage band....


(This is the only one of the blog entries in this series that does not reflect reality.  After all, Lee didn't really run away....)

Wanna try again?  Click here.

Be Still

This week I am taking a class for work at the University of Montana in Missoula.  It is a gorgeous campus, with walking trails and bountiful nature all around.  Adjacent to the building where the ecosystem restoration class being held is a raised bed garden with glorious wildflowers.

Being who I am, I immediately began scouting the flowers to see the bees.  And there were none visible.  I scanned from right to left, front to back, and was just amazed that in all of this gorgeous flora, with all of their delicious nectar, there was not one bee. 

So I started scanning flower types.  I know that lavender is a prime source of nectar, so I went to one patch, and then the next.  No bees.

Bees love purple flowers (they can't see red), so I focused in on the next set of flowers.  Still no bees.   

It made no sense.  I had even seen some hives as I was driving in to campus, so I know that they are present.  Further, the window of opportunity for bees in this area of the country is pretty small (I think that their winter begins next week).  So the bees should just be covering every flower, competing for the opportunity to pollinate and drink deeply from the gorgeous blooms.

Nothing.  

Perplexed, I just stopped and stared at the garden.  About four seconds later, I saw motion out of my peripheral vision.  I tracked the movement and smiled when I saw my first bee, as she lit on a white flower.

As I watched that beautiful little girl dipping flower after flower, I saw motion to my right.  To my left.  Above.  Below.  Right at my fingertips.  Everywhere, there was motion.

I was amazed.  Somehow, I had totally missed it.

This is not the first time I have had a hard time spotting bees.  Almost every single time that I am called out to someone's house to do a bee removal, I scout the entire property, looking up and down for the entrance with bees.... and I only manage to see them when they are pointed out.  Even swarms, where there is a huge amount of bee activity, poses an observation problem to me. I have a blind spot for a group of creatures that I love.

I am convinced that it is a matter of being still.

I am, at my core, a pretty lazy guy.  I would rather sit than stand, and I would rather stand than walk.  But even when being still, I am not still.  My mind is trying to take in all of the visual cues I receive, and I jump from one thing to the next, making connections and asking questions and flitting from one idea and observation to the next, sipping from each flower in turn.

As a result, I am seldom truly still.

But then when I am still and quiet, an entire world opens up to me.  I begin to see things that I missed.  Small actions that I had not noticed.  My peripheral vision pulls in information that my frenetic brain did not process.

Some 3000 years ago, the Psalmist wrote, Be still, and know that I am God. 

I suspect that, just as I do with the motion of the bees, that I miss God a lot.  In my action-packed, schedule-filled week of activities, I jump from one bit of work to another, and one bit of fun to the next.  And in all of that action and motion, I forget to take a moment, to take a breath, and truly be still.  To quiet my mind.  

This week, I will try and do better.  I will look and listen to those around me, to stop long enough to let my soul begin to sense what my eyes filter out.  This week, I will quiet my brain and actually work at being still.

To observe the motion around me, and be amazed.

Don't Look - Long Way Down

I extended my 20' ladder to its full length, and placed it against the front wall of Mr. Stephen Edmonson's house.  I clambered up, I stood on the top available rung, and still fell about four feet short of being able to peer into the hive.

This beehive removal was going to be tricky.

Stephen has a lovely house over in Ridgeland, about a 45 minute drive from my house, and he has bees that have infested the corner of the house. As he explained it,

Last year, we had a huge swarm of bees out in the tree right there in the front yard last year, and they just stayed there for a long time - it was just amazing.  Eventually, they moved into that spot right there. Then a couple of months ago, the AC guy got stung a couple of times in my attic, and there are a lot of dead bees up there.  So I contacted another beekeeper, who just got too busy.... and then I called you.

From the top of the ladder, I was at a better vantage point, but it was also very clear that my ladder was not going to cut it.  It was also clear that there was NOTHING to hang onto. But the bees were industriously running in and out of the hive, bringing in their groceries and doing their bit to pollinate the world.

I came back and told Stephen, "I will need to get a better ladder, but I can do it.  I will need somebody to help with this one, just because it is high, though.  But we should be able to get it out of there with little problem.  I'll send you an estimate, and we'll schedule the work."

Armed with a sturdy rental ladder from Home Depot, I returned this past Saturday to take on the job, with a friend and beekeeper Shannen Blackledge.  Even with the taller ladder, though, the drop from the top was formidable.  My auditorium job (blog post still pending) was probably higher, but at least there were some branches to hang onto while I worked. Not so here...

Every removal job I have done has been an exercise in problem solving.  How do I get to the bees, how do I open the hole enough to get them out; how do I remove them safely (both safety for me and safety for them) and how do I keep them from returning?

Finally started, I removed the molding on the face of the hive, and pried up the roofing just enough to see the extent of the comb.  And it was beautiful.  Layer after layer of beautiful, amber-colored comb. And curious bees looking back at me, without aggression or anger, just checking me out, then going back to clean up the mess I had already started to make.

That mess was about to get a whole lot worse.

Peeking inside.

I removed the shingles from the overhang (overbalancing once for a frightening moment).  And then tried to pry loose the waferboard (OSB) underneath.  The OSB extended under and through, and was tied into place from multiple directions.  After a half hour of trying to untie the Gordian knot, I got out the Sawzall, and cut through the OSB that capped the area. The comb was attached to the waferboard; removing it broke the very top of the comb off, and the delicious smell of honey permeated everything.  And the honey started to drip.

Honeycomb attached to waferboard

It dripped onto the ladder.  It dripped onto the light fixture.  I dripped onto the tarp (placed on the patio in an odd moment of foresight on my part) and onto me.  I invited Shannen to take a look from my perch on top of the ladder.  After a brief glance, her nice, clean suit was no longer either.

Then I started removing comb.  The first piece is almost always the toughest, as you have to try and remove the comb from the top, bottom, and sides, all without destroying the comb or spilling a drop of honey or pinching a bee or overbalancing.

...revealed more beneath.

This time, I successfully used a combination of bbq tongs and a long, thin jabsaw that let me cut the pieces free by sliding between the pieces of comb. What surprised me was how far back I could feel the comb.  The open space between combs extended more than 3 feet back... well beyond where I should have encountered the brick of the wall.  Oh, man, I thought.  This is going to be a MUCH bigger job than I thought.

A few more pieces of comb removed, and it was clear what had happened.  Instead of brick, there was foil-backed styrofoam board, covering an opening in the wall.  The bees had chewed through the styrofoam, and the ladies had built two combs and filled one with honey.

This was how the girls were getting into the attic. This was how the AC guy got stung.

Meanwhile, I am frantically looking for the queen.  My previous removals have not resulted in complete success, because I did not find the queen, and separate her out.  In one removal, she escaped and hid, only to return to the scene and instruct her followers to build more comb.  In another, I feel sure she got smushed by the vacuum (I have since lowered the amount of suction I use).  None has resulted in a queen that is viable.

So this time, I am on the lookout.  I extract a bee with an enormous abdomen, and am thrilled.  I have found the queen! Then I find another.  And another.

Apparently, this whole race of bees has huge distended abdomens.  And because they are coated in honey, it is hard to tell.  (Eventually, I captured her.  I think).

Finally, after dozens of trips up and down the ladder, each time carrying more brood and honey and comb down from the perch, and each time smearing more honey onto each rung of the ladder, I had hit the end of what I could reach.

There were still eight pieces of comb that needed to be removed.  And I had no real way to get to them.  The remainder were bracketed by multiple 2x4s, and closed in - completely inaccessible.  I reached in to cut the next one free, but every time I would reach to retrieve it, I would only manage to push it further away.

By this time, I had worked the site from 9:30 to mid afternoon, and I was getting tired and a little more accident prone.  I had managed to stave off a couple of slips (note to self: buy shoes with better traction) and a sickening slide of the ladder against the now-slick brick of the building (note to self: buy a ladder stabilizer) and a scary moment with the Sawzall (note to self:....um.)

Honeycomb's big, yeah, yeah, yeah...

I worked out the only solution I could come up with.  One more board was removed from the front - a small section of 2x4 that ran along the face of the opening.  Once I removed that piece, I had access to the remainder of the comb, which was very fresh, bright, new comb with pure honey inside.

All of the family - Stephen, his wife, and his four beautiful kids - all got in on the action at different points in the day.  For them, and for the passersby that stopped to ask us questions, we carved out and shared honey.

Then took the rest back with us.  (Where it now sits, in mason jars, ready for consumption....).  And finally, the removal of the comb was complete.

All (all!) that remained at this point was removal of the bees, cleaning the empty space, and relocating the bees to a new home.

It had already been a long day at this point, and it was not getting any shorter.  Shannen put another bottle of water in my hand - she had been carefully monitoring me for dehydration all day long, and fed me bottle after bottle of water.  A true life saver.

I attached my beevac to the shorter ladder and climbed up three more times to remove as many bees as I could reach.  Many would come back from the field later that evening and next day, but I managed to fill three buckets with bees, each getting set aside for placement once we got the comb moved to a new location.

I doused the entire opening with ammonia, which got the bees excited, but did not induce them to leave.  Finally, once the majority of the sticky mess had been turned into an ammonia-y mess, And most of the bees were gone, I added the poison to keep them from coming back and reoccupying the DMZ.


The final step was to get the bees installed in a new home.  I considered all my options.  The ones I favored all involved 3Bs - beer, benadryl, and bed, and leaving the bees for the next day.  But to give them the best chance at survival, I needed to get them into a new home as soon as possible.

I finally decided that I would drop them into a top-bar hive on Eddie Brook's property.  Two different removals have ended up on Eddie's doorstep, and one of the hives had completely absconded, so there was space.

I cut comb, wrapped rubber bands around the comb, and strapped the pieces on a top bar, fitting them into the box.  Then I suited up, and dumped all three buckets of bees into their new home, wishing them luck and leaving them behind. So that I could head to a place where three different Bs awaited my attention.

Reports from the field:

From Mr. Edmonson, following the removal:  On Sunday there was a huge swarm of them all around our house. Hundreds where you removed the hive. We almost couldn't go outside, they were attacking us in the front and back yard. We left after lunch on Sunday and just got back this afternoon. I looked up at the hive area, and I could see no more than 3 bees buzzing around and a lot of dead ones on the ground. So you must have gotten the queen.

And from Eddie Brooks:  There are LOTS of bees buzzing and happy around the new hive.  They look good.

Some Lessons Learned:

• Ladder stabilizers are a must for high jobs.
• Bring the top bar hive with you so you can tie off comb as you remove it.
• More tupperware will always be needed.
• Benadryl tablets might not be a bad thing to bring along. 
• Hornet spray splatters back on you (and burns!) at close range.
• Granola bars are a requirement.  A full meal in the middle of the day would be bad, but hunger at the end of the day is bad, too.

End result, I think this will be a success.  The bees are now no longer in the house, and a carpenter can come and do the repair work without fear of being stung.  And the bees have a new home that they can live in, with attention and care being paid to their well being.

Can't wait to see them building more comb.