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.