Choose your own adventure - Honeybees

If you choose to run out the front door, turn to page 23.
If you go to the kitchen to investigate, turn to page 26.

Was there ever anything better than those books?  I loved them.  In the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, you chose a path, and got to find out what the consequence of your choice was.  It was almost a delicious precursor to the choices in role-playing games, and their early computer counterparts.

I found out this week that I have been playing my own version of the Choose Your Own Adventure story, as I try to remove bees from the Vicksburg Auditorium.  It has been a steep learning curve, with numerous stops and starts, outright fails, and exhilarating successes (today was a good day, just so you know.)

And so I have decided to chronicle the events like a CYOA book.  Each decision point for the Vicksburg Auditorium will be a separate brief blog entry, that shows how it turned out.  In the process, you will see what I have learned in the process. And if you manage to install the bees in a new home, then you have won.

And if not, a back button will give you another chance.

Let's get started:

You get a call from the City of Vicksburg, and they have bees in their auditorium, and want your help.  Do you:

Pick up the phone and call them back?

or

Decide you'd rather go to the movies? 

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.

My "Not Bees" Contract

"I have a large cone of bees on the window of my house, and I need someone to remove them. Can you come?"

I don't know how Ms. Eloise found me.  It doesn't matter.  I love getting out and finding out where bees have showed up and invaded people's personal space.  She sounded concerned. A little scared.  I told her I could come by after work and look at the situation and see what I could do.  She gave me the address, and thanked me.

As I mentioned before, I don't usually see bees on my own.  I have to have them pointed out to me. Yet again, this was the case.  "Do you see them?" I was looking at a corner where some wasps were buzzing around.  Ms. Eloise redirected my attention to the top of her picture window.

Oh.

That was not what I was looking for.

It was not a huge hornets' nest, but it was unquestionably a hornets' nest.  Not a honeybee hive.  This simple fact took the entire operation well out of my area of expertise.  I don't bring any specialized knowledge of hornets to the table, and I really can't help any more than I would be able to do at home.

"Ma'am, I deal with honeybees.  And my price point starts at $300.  But this situation doesn't fit with what I know.  I mean, I can use hornet spray, but I wouldn't be able to do anything you couldn't do.  If you want me to do it, I can come by after work tomorrow and do it for $50, but...."

"Please do it."

We continued to talk, and I suggested the local pest control guy, who is a friend of mine.  Suggested that she could get him to remove the nest, and treat her house, for essentially what she was offering to pay me.  "I want you to do it.  I am allergic, and I just want them gone."

OK.

I have a can of hornet spray at the house.  I use it after removing hives from houses, because after removing a hive, I need to discourage returning bees from re-occupying.  I bring the can to work with me, and after work, I drive over and suit up.

The hornets are not terribly active, but there was a guard hornet at the entrance.  While I was gearing up, I tested the spray out on a few other red wasp nests that dotted the eaves of the house.  When I felt that my aim was pretty good, I sprayed the nest.

I was ready to run.

The first hornet hit the ground under the windowsill.  I sprayed some more.  Nothing further.

As anti-climaxes go, this one was really racking up some anti-climax points.

Because the nest was just beyond the reach of my knife, I walked around the house to find a board, stick, or something to tie the cutter on.  By the time I returned with a pole, there were more dead hornets on the ground and on the sill.  Not huge numbers.  Mean looking, but few in number.  And dead.

I cut the nest free of the house, and dosed the space with more of the poison.  No stings, no chase scenes, nothing but a few dead hornets.  My A-CP rating for this job was off the charts.

Ms. Eloise had already paid me (and she left quickly, headed back to work), and so all I had to do was clean up a little, shed the suit (98 degrees and high humidity - I had sweat through my work clothes by the time I was done), and leave.  I left the mostly-unused can of hornet spray on her doorstep.  And took a few more pictures as I was leaving.

My specialty is honeybee removal.  The point of the removal is to save as many bees as you can, and provide the hive a new place. Extermination is something different.

But the truth is, some of the same principles are involved, in a way.  In either case, the natural world comes too close to the man-made environment, and we look to beat it back.  Particularly those elements of the natural world that come with pointy bits (honeybees, scorpions, snakes, hornets, spiders, wolverines), we want them at a distance.

As I stated before, I don't know anything about hornets.  I am not aware of a world-wide hornet shortage, or who, exactly, that would inconvenience.  I don't know all of the good qualities of hornets, and I am less fascinated by their social structure than my bees or even ants.  So when I get asked to help out by removing some, I don't mind, but I am not doing anything with any understanding or specialized knowledge.  But sometimes....

Sometimes you just have to help out a neighbor.

And yeah, maybe make 50 bucks in the process....

Make no Mistake

This was a terrible idea.

After a day, you revisit the site, and vacuum the huge number of bees collecting outside, trying to find their way into the hive using the old entrance.  And for whatever reason, the vacuum is more successful than previous days, and you actually get draw through the bucket.  Thousands upon thousands of bees get pulled in.  High mortality rate, but they are getting removed.  And you can install them into another hive, where they can help out another queen.

About the time you are ready to call it a night, Mr Artiss comes and grabs you to talk about the bees inside.

Turns out, you should have read a little more before sealing the hive, because youwould have read this, as quoted from a blog by Mike Thomson:

NOTE: Whatever you do, DO NOT simply seal up the opening where you see bees entering & exiting. They will simply find another way out of the wall/floor where they reside. This often means that they will find a way into the interior of you home, harassing you and your family.

 (Wait.  Did you just say INTERIOR?!?)

Oops.

Yep.  The bees were congregated inside the window.  Piled inside.  Dead bees by the thousands, and live bees by the tens of thousands.  It was the stuff of nightmares.  With a Blues concert coming up in a matter of days, it was not just a minor issue.  It was something that required immediate, and persistent attention.

You show up the next day, beevac in tow, and climbed up the ladder to remove the bees.  There were BILLIONS of bees, and they all went into the beevac and made a sticky bee sludge (since then, you adjusted the suction, and are killing fewer bees).  After removing all the bees outside, you go inside where the bees were congregating at the window, and remove the thousands of bees there.  The window does not close all the way, and so you mistakenly assume that the bees were getting in through the crevice between the window and the sill.  Lots of bees.

Vacuum still sucking up and killing bees, you worked the room until there were only a few bees remaining.  You use your caulk to fill the space between the window and the sill, and then repeat the process, then repeat the process again, as the caulk settled and the hole opened back up.

And for each day for the next two weeks, you repeat the process.  Turns out that the bees had found a way into the attic, and were going towards the light at the window, congregating at what appeared to be an exit.

Once you have that area sealed up, the bees start finding their way into the auditorium.

By the way, it is now high school graduation season.  And the auditorium has daily events.

You chase your tail trying to eliminate the bees from the place where people are, but there are several stings.  Inside. And nothing you can do about it.

Eventually, the bees inside the walls die, and you are in the clear.  No complaints to the mayor's office.  No lawsuits.  And no allergic reactions.  Just a couple of people who are unhappy about getting stung.



Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is still another hive on the other side of the building.  I suggest you try trapping them out.

Cone Trap - Brushy Mountain Part 2

Regardless of how you got here, whether you simply waited or you used some interim measure to try it first, the time finally comes to apply the cone you bought from Brushy Mountain Bee Farms.  And it works.

The bees are able to get out, but not get back in.  The escaped bees look for a new home, and find one in your hive, hung next to the entrance on the escape ladder, carefully draped and secured over the top of the wall, 35' above the concrete.

For some of you who got here after doing other things, you removed the multiple attempts at sealing off the holes and attached the cone.  For those who came straight here, you sealed up the other entrances with expanding foam sealer and attached the cone.

Either way, the cone directs the bees out of the hive, and does not let them back in.

The result is very exciting.

Bees out and about.... and not going back in.  A couple of adjustments a couple of days later, and the box is close enough to draw the bees into the space that smells like bees.  Once the bees have started to see it as a home, you take a couple of frames of brood stolen from one of your backyard hives, and place them in the box.  And then you wait.

For two weeks you wait, leaving the whole setup alone. Of course, you check it out every other day, just to make sure that the seals hold.

Two weeks later, you take the box down, and open it up.

Inside, you see this:

In the two weeks since you put two frames of eggs and brood in the box, the bees inside have taken three of those eggs and made them into queen cells, fed the larvae, closed her up to let her pupate, and then waited.  And she emerged!

You look carefully through the five frames to see if you can could find her (virgin queens are harder to spot) or if she was laying yet. No eggs.  Someone who might be a queen....  but not sure.

Either way, she is there.

And...

She has already started taking care of business.

One hive, One queen.  Inviolate rule.  So, since the bees in the box raised THREE queens, her first job is to eliminate rivals.  She emerged first, and then quickly ran over to the other two, chewed an opening into their pupa cells, and stung them to death.

Ruthless. But effective.

The workers then pulled the carcasses of the dead queen bees out and discarded them, leaving behind a ragged shell of what originally housed royalty.

You are pretty sure that you arrived on day 17 of the queen's life, after she emerged, and before her mating flight.  There were no eggs or brood in the hive.  But you now have a hive with a viable queen.

Partial success to your mission of removing the bees!

Meanwhile, more bees continue to emerge from the auditorium, and they seem to find their way into the box.  At this point, however, you are trying to figure out whether to try another box to capture the remainder of the bees.  After all, the bees emerging from the hive in the wall are not welcome in the new queendom...

Huge success here.  You should be proud of yourself.  And please, help yourself to a little celebration for your success: a cocktail that truly fits the bill: the bees knees.

Taking the Job

"Mr. Lawton?"

"No, ma'am.  That was my dad.  I am just Crorey."

"Oh."

Not an unusual start to a conversation - it usually starts this way.  After introductions, get down to the business of signing contracts, and walk out with a contract for $200 per hive removal.  Discounted because the city is letting you use their ladder.  The height is a little intimidating, but is OK, because you just signed with the city to do work.

One side of the building has a hive - and the hive is next to a tree.  The other side of the building has another hive, and there is nothing there to hang on to - but also nothing to get in your way.  Both of them need to be removed, and need to be removed safely.  For neither of them can you actually tear open the wall.

Your first decision is which side of the building to address first.  Since you are new at this, you pick the one where there is something to grab onto.  It means that there is a little bit of wiggling that you have to do to get to the top, but once you are there, there are sturdy branches to brace yourself against.

The second decision is more important.  How do you coax the bees out?

Your equipment is limited.  You have a vacuum that has been modified to pull bees out, and a bucket that the bees get drawn into (a better design by Dr. Scott Johnson is detailed here).  And you have the traditional smoker and suit.  And finally, you have sealer - a can of expanding foam that will allow you to seal the other entrances, and ensure that you catch the whole hive.  The final ingredient that you have is:

...a fair amount of chutspah.

....and urgency.  There are a number of events planned for the auditorium, and the city wants the participants of each to have a bee-free event.

Two ways to proceed:  Do you:

a) Set up the ladder and the vacuum and get started?  Click here.

or

b) Go back to the house and read more about trapping out bees.  Click here.

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.

Tie-Down Straps to Secure the Box

Great Idea.  Tie-Down Straps give a tight, secure connection that are easy to use, and will not deteriorate or be affected by wind or weather.  They can be cinched down as tightly as needed.  They are sturdy.

The only problem is making the attachment. You are taking the box up a rickety 30' ladder, to attach to what is essentially a rope ladder slung over the top of the building.  To connect the box to the ladder, you will have to do the following steps:

• Carry the box and the straps up the ladder
• Balance the box while you attach the straps
• Extend the box out into the space you want it
• Hook the strap around the far side of the rope ladder
• Slide the box through the strap
• Hook the strap around the near side of the rope ladder
• Slide the box through the strap
• Cinch the far strap tight while holding on to the near side
• Cinch the near strap tight 
• Alternate between the two straps until the box is secure

Now, at the end of every step above, add the words, "and do not fall."

Two decisions were made early on.  1st was, that if you felt the box begin to lose balance, that there would be NO attempt to save it.  Because the words, DO NOT FALL were added to the end of every sentence.  Easier even to replace brood and eggs than a femur.  Or a spine.  Or parietals.  

Second decision was to pre-stage the straps.  By looping them in the rope ladder ahead of time, all that remains is to slide the box through the strap and cinch it tight.  It requires estimating how much slack will be needed, but it frees up hands to do the balancing.

Unfortunately, there are not enough hands to provide an extra to hold on while performing the undertaking.  So you will have to balance carefully.

After you secure the straps to the rope ladder, you climb with the box.  Unfortunately, you are holding the box the wrong way, with the entrance away from the trap-out location.  But hopefully the bees will figure it out, since it would be nearly impossible to swap ends while you are up there.

You slide the box in.  This is the precarious moment, where you are in the greatest danger of overbalancing.  You carefully extend your arms, and, balancing the box on one hand, you extend your other, opening the hole for the box to fit into.  

Success.  There is a lot of slack, since you overestimated to avoid not having enough.  But that is OK.  You slide the near side into the loops, and you are home free.  Now it is just a matter of cinching it tight.

You begin to tighten the straps, a little from each side, and are very nearly done, when the box gives a sickening lurch.  

For a moment, you consider trying to save it. And then think better.  

And you watch in horror as the box, complete with eggs and brood from your other hive, slips out of both loops and drops thirty feet to the concrete below.

The box pops open.  Honey oozes from the broken mass of frames.  Broken bee larvae dropped out of the frame, and the box is a mess.  The frames themselves broke - the plastic ones shattered, the wooden ones broke in several places, and the empty ones are chipped and dinged pretty badly.

The whole thing is very discouraging.

On the other hand, by letting it fall, you avoided a terrible fate of your own.  And frames can be replaced.  

So you do - replace the frames, that is.  After trying to tape up the box, you decide to replace it entirely, and put new brood and frames in, reusing what you can, and climb up again.

But maybe you should try using bungee cords, instead.

Cone Trap - Brushy Mountain Bee Farms

So you have decided to buy a commercially produced product.  Great.  It is even inexpensive. $2!

But they charge $14 shipping.  For an item that is literally the size of a matchbox.

Undaunted by their exorbitant shipping costs?  I mean, you are going to spend money on screen wire, unless you cut it out of your neighbor's back door, right?

Bad news.  It also takes 10 days for them to process your order.  So you will sit for almost two weeks while you wait on your item to come.

Remember that urgency to getting the job done?  Yeah, well.  Forget about that.

So you need to do something else while you are waiting.  And you will have some nice cones for the next time.... if you can remember where you put them.

Did you want to try the nylon cone?  Click here

Did you want to attach an aluminum cone?  Click here

Did you want to do a hardware cloth cone?  Click here.

Or you can just wait for the store-bought cones.  Click here.

Bungees

So you decide to attach the box to the rope ladder with bungee cords.  Good idea.  Because you will have limited options when you are on top of the ladder, you wrap the bungee cords twice around the box, and then connect them to a carabiner, one on each side.

You start up the ladder, and realize that you have the box backwards.  The entrance is facing away from the hive entrance.  So you head back down the ladder, swap it end for end, and secure it tightly before beginning to climb again.

You haul the box up to the top of the ladder, and attach everything - very carefully - to the far side of the rope ladder, and then the near side of the rope ladder.  A few minor adjustments to get the box to hang vertically, and you are all set.

As you descend, you keep your fingers crossed, that the eggs and brood you left in the box will be attractive enough for the bees to come in, make a home, and start raising a queen.


....


A week later, and a few adjustments later, you are finally getting some bees in the box, but you are pretty sure that your eggs did not make it.  Eggs and young larvae need nurse bees to care for them, so they are not likely to have survived the heat without any care.

But when you check them, you are surprised to see that the brood has emerged.  They did not make any new queens, but there are new bees in the box that came from the brood cells.  And they are happily making honey in the box.

So you add two new frames of eggs and brood, and wait.  And hope.

And then....  click here.

Nylon Screen

Congratulations.  You just wasted 15 dollars more (you are only getting $200 for this, by the way).  The nylon does not hold up, flopping closed before you ever even apply the glue to it.  Worse, because you cut it to try it out, you can't even return it to Home Depot.  Would you like to try a different one?

Try aluminum screen.

Try 1/8" hardware cloth.

Or....

Give up and take the vacuum to them.

Cone Trap - Hardware Cloth

It makes sense.  If bees can get back into the cone the way that they got out of it, you need to change the cone.  The pokey entrance was not enough to dissuade (or you decided, like I did, to try the combination first) and you reinforce the cone with hardware cloth ($18 at the hardware store)

The concept: the outside cone gives the bees coming back in an entrance.  But at the base, they also have an exit, so they don't find the opening at the tip of the interior cone.

Note the total lack of bees
congregating around the entrance.

I am not sure how this is supposed to work.  Because it doesn't.  The bees go straight through the cone on the outside, and climb back in the cone on the inside.  The cone-within-a-cone serves no purpose.  Meanwhile, your box of bees, with a frame of brood, is getting no attention from the bees you are trying to trap.  So they are very actively NOT working to raise a new queen, because they already have a hive, and a queen, thank you very much.

So you have wasted a week.  You have wasted another can of expanding foam sealer ($7).  You have killed off all of the eggs in the frame you stole from the other hive. (What a waste.  Seriously.) 

So since the holes are too big, and there is no way to retro-fit it, you will start again.  Cutting away the whole mess, you pull apart the pieces you have used, keeping small cones and long cones and discarding the pieces of foam. (Meanwhile, the angel on your right shoulder begins to complain that you are letting pieces of foam fall without picking them up.  So you stop and do that...)

You look for something to use to ensure that your form gets held, and that can be attached to the wall.

OK.  Tea balls.  Why not?

You cut a hole in half of the tea strainer.  And you use it, attaching it to the side of the building.  The bees immediately start emerging, and they don't come back inside.  (Well, at least for a day).

When they do, you take the other cone, salvaged from the previous, and cement it into place using the last of your second can of expanding foam sealer.

Are you getting tired of this?  Yeah.  Well, let's see how your box is doing.

I forget.  Did you...

Attach the box using ratchet tie-down straps?  Click here.

or did you attach the box using bungee cords?  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.

Back to the Drawing Board

Sometimes, it is best to just take a beat, and read, and think, and plan a little more.  Sure, there is a time for action, but sometimes, you gain insight by putting the chutzpah on hold and plotting things through a little better.

The books talk a lot about trap-outs, and how they work.  Essentially, you take a length of screen wire and make a cone out of it, creating a one-way door for the bees.  The bees come out of the wall, but they can't get back in. To help encourage them to find their place in a new home, you place a box right next to the cone, and they magically adopt that box as their home.

That is what the books say.  The details of how you do it are a little indistinct.  So you go to the internet, the source of all knowledge. Magically, like Rule 37, if it exists, you can buy it.  A site called Brushy Mountain Bees sells a cone for you.  Already made.  And they are cheap, selling for $2 each.

And then you add in the 14 dollars for shipping.

Never mind.  You decide to make it yourself.

A few more hours of clickbait internet surfing later, (Kylie Minogue meets with a Belgium prince, and you'll never believe what happens next!) you have done all the damage you can do.  The cone, you discover, has to be set over the entrance, and has to be the size of a bee at the end.  You can also make a double cone, if your bees find the way back in to your first cone. (With an escape hatch at the bottom so that the bees will enter, climb down, and exit, never finding the interior cone.

Do you (click one):

Make a cone out of fiberglass screen,

or,

Make a cone out of aluminum screen,

or,

Make a cone out of 1/8" hardware cloth

or,

Bite the shipping bullet and buy the cone from Brushy Mountain Bee