This is me, vacuuming bees out of a wall in a house that is scheduled for deomolition.
One of the cool things my dad does is take bees out of people's houses. I've only done a couple of removals with him, but he's done tons. Bees like to make their homes anywhere that offers a cavity of a certain size that is also dry and safe. House, garage, and barn walls or between the floor and ceiling are the ideal nesting place for bees.
Many people try to kill colonies that have moved into their buildings with poison, rather than calling a beekeeper, because to remove a colony that has already started building comb and having babies takes a lot of time for the beekeeper, and the bees are not happy about it, making them defensive and sting-y. So beekeepers tend to charge for this type of work.
In today's video, Dad removed a wild hive from someone's house and has put it in a hive box to see if it will survive the winter. You can see the comb that the bees built--Dad has placed it in the hive box so the bees won't lose their hatching brood.
I've also thrown together some photos of me and Dad removing bees from various places.
In this picture, Dad has ripped the siding from an old house and is working at removing the bees that have taken up residence inside. This ended up being 2 colonies and an 8-hour job.
In this picture, a massive swarm descended on the front yard of my parents' house and settled in the plum trees. It was 9 pounds of bees.
In this photo, Dad readies the smoker as we prepare to remove some of the supers to harvest honey.
This swarm decided that rather than move into a nice safe wall in somebody's house, they'd start building their comb in a tree. This is a rare occurrence where either they couldn't find a nesting place, or finding their home took so long they naturally started depositing comb on the branch. In cold climates building your house outdoors is an unwise course of action for the bees. Isn't the comb beautiful, though?
And there you have it: this week's Beekeeping Things! Stay tuned next week for some more wild and wonderful in the world of bees. Or check out last week's post: Beekeeping Things: Ariele and Peter Catch a Swarm [Video Series].
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