Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => HONEYBEE REMOVAL => Topic started by: Icaughtafraggle on March 21, 2016, 05:49:18 pm
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On Friday, a swarm moved into a pillar on my front porch. The pillar is stucco with a stone facade, so breaking it open is really not something I want to do. I'm perfectly fine leaving the bees alone, since they aren't really bothering us. My husband is concerned that the hive will grow and end up invading our house, so he wants them exterminated. We had a pest control person come out and they said they're pretty certain they are European bees. I'm told that the cost to have a beekeeper come and remove them would be very expensive. Our money is tight right now, so I was hoping there was a way I could safely encourage them to leave or move
I really don't know much about bees, beyond what is on the news. I'd like to get them to move but I don't really know how. My thought was to buy a small bee keeping box and some pheromone and hope they move. Then I'd call a beekeeper to simply come and collect them. Is this crazy?
Any ideas would be appreciated
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If they just moved in in the last couple of days, I would use a smoker, with it properly started at the bottom and packed tight and fill the void with thick smoke until they move out. You will need to have a small hive setup for them to go into.
They probably will not just move out of the pillar since they selected it.
You must act quickly to do this. Once they have brood you cannot smoke them out.
Jim
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Where are you located? There are people in my beekeepers club that will trap bees out of a structure like you describe and just ask you to make a $100 donation to our club's scholarship program for training teenagers to be beekeepers. There's probably something like that wherever you are located. Trapping bees out doesn't involve any destruction of the structure, but it can take some time.
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Once they have brood you cannot smoke them out.
What does this mean? How can I tell if they have brood?
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Dallasbeek, I am in a suburb, east of phoenix
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Once they have brood you cannot smoke them out.
What does this mean? How can I tell if they have brood?
Brood are the young bees. In order to have brood, they bees have to build comb in their new location and then the queen will start laying eggs. In one week a good large swarm can fill most of a deep super with comb. The queen will start laying eggs when the comb is about 1/4" deep. In 3 days the eggs will hatch and you have brood.
That is why you need to get an experienced Beek as soon as possible to smoke them out before you have brood.
Jim
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Hey, I appreciate your decision and calling a honey beekeeper is the way to remove or relocate the honey bee hives from a place. The beekeepers easily handle such situations and move bees safely without killing any of them.
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The beekeepers easily handle such situations and move bees safely without killing any of them.
We try....but the old adage about breaking eggs and omelettes applies here.....there is always some mortality when you perform a removal but getting the queen and the majority of the bees will allow the colony to recover and continue to grow in a better place.
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The beekeepers easily handle such situations and move bees safely without killing any of them.
We try....but the old adage about breaking eggs and omelettes applies here.....there is always some mortality when you perform a removal but getting the queen and the majority of the bees will allow the colony to recover and continue to grow in a better place.
And remember, bees are super organisms just like us. In a strong hive, one to two thousand bees die a day during a good flow. Killing a few bees in a hive is like getting a bruse on your arm, a lot of cells die but we survive and replace them.
The important thing is for the whole hive and their genetics to survive the move.
Jim