Posted on 06/18/2009 10:38:34 AM PDT by DCBryan1
Freepers:
As usual, I try to find "experts" on certain issues here before I go searching for the "googled" or "wiki" answers.
I have a large hive of honey bees (non-african) in my wall of my house. I have tolerated them for a wile (they have been there for four-five years), but this year they are much, much more numerous and I fear that the mold/mildew inside of my siding will be detrimental in the long run.
I want to safely remove them without destroying the hive and transplant them to a bee box.
Beekeeping has been one of my "learn how to do" hobbies and I think this is a great opportunity.
Do any of you have any experience, techniques, or known methods to safely remove a hive from within an exterior wall, and then transplant them to a bee-box?
Thanks for your input!
....moving their home...I bet I could entice some of them.
I was collecting rocks at a quarry once and uncovered a wasp nest. Got nailed three times on the shoulder a good 30 yards from the nest as I high tailed it out of there.
I am not sure where you live but I knew of people that kept bees and could get some kind of farm credit come tax time.......but that was awhile ago and maybe that credit is long since gone....however, it may be worth exploring
good luck and I would love a follow up on how this issue was resolved.....thank you
My dad and I used to have over 50 hives of bees on the farm and we got several out of people’s walls. We also got some out of hollow trees in the woods.
The reason I said not to use anything red is that it really p***es them off. They will attack anything red. Actually, they don’t like anything orange or pink either.
I’m not sure if there’s an easy answer to that one.
You could get some mace or pepper spray, if that’s legal. Or you could get a citronella sprayer, which is harmless but which repels most dogs. We have successfully used citronella bark collars to keep one of our dogs from barking. But a determined attack dog isn’t something you’d want to take a chance with—it could maim or kill you or your dog if your luck was bad.
One obvious answer would be to speak to the neighbor and make sure that the fence won’t break. Or, possibly, he could put the dog on a good strong wire as well as behind the fence. The problem with that is that neighbors can often be difficult about such matters—I don’t know about this one. But there’s nothing like a dog problem to set neighbors at war with each other.
Pepper spray, or a spray bottle full of glacial ammonium hydroxide (get it from a blueprint supplier) which will make it impossible for the dog to breathe near you.
Have you let your fingers do the walking
in the yellow pages?
I worked for a apartment complex that had a 2 year old honey bee infestation under a porch. The honeycomb we removed was about 30 pounds....it varies but I assume yours is at least twice that much....;)
I kept bees for several years. As many have stated, try and find a beekeeper who will do his best to get the bees out of your wall. I expect that siding will have to be removed to do this.
The beekeeper will use smoke to calm the bees and remove the combs and place them in a large box. Once he finds the comb with the queen on it, the rest of the bees will follow. This process will likely take a big part of the day. You might want to be somewhere else as the bees will be agitated.
Becoming a beekeeper is a great idea, but using these bees to start with isn’t. Moving a hive 10 miles or 100 is relatively easy. Pack the hive on a truck and haul it away. But moving a hive 10 feet is a real hassle. You have to move the bees a few inches a day until you get your hive where you want it (or move it 10 miles away, wait a few days and then move it back.)
Beekeeping can be very rewarding, but there are a few tricks to it.
You’ll need to smoke them out, or open up the hive, find the queen and relocate her. The drones will follow the queen.
Those are the only two non lethal options I can think of for ya. Someone might have better ideas.
And even after you get them out, you really should open up the wall and clean the mess they have made for years out and seal it all up so no new bugs can get in.
yeah, nothing in yellow pages....sigh
“Supposedly, smoke disorients the bees and keeps them calm enough to work with.”
Blow bong smoke into the hive, put a pepperoni pizza outside.
What a stupid thing to say, he could blow his house up and kill people.
Absolutely the best answer is to get a pro - preferably a bonded pro.
IMHO there are three problems:
(1) Finding the queen. Hanamizu (runny nose? really?) is right. MOST of the other bees will follow her. Then the recovered colony/hive must be moved at least 3 miles away so they won’t get confused and try to re-enter the old place. See 3 below
(2) Removing comb and propolis; probably putting some kind of repellent in their place. A place that’s attractive to one swarm can be attractive to another. This is going to be a heck of a job.
(3) Preventing recurrence. Seal access points. And check them late next winter or early spring and for ever thereafter. A BUNCH of bees can be content with a very narrow slit or hole for access, and lots of houses have lots of gaps in their siding, fascia, etc. This will not be trivial.
Just pouring the smoke to ‘em won’t do. Some will just move further into the house. I learned this the hard way. Getting the queen is critical. And good cleanup is as well.
And the combs can be huge. A regular super can be awfully heavy when it’s full of honey. Good bees make way more than they need. there could be 6 foot long combs and a LOT of honey in there.
What color re the bees. Are they feisty or do they stick to business? Have you observed any exiting swarms?
Jump up and down and repeat.
After this, you will not mind the bees in the wall.
I’ve uncovered bee hives in walls as old as yours and they are literally thick between the 2 X 4s. Like walls. You could probably recover 50 to 60 pounds of honey easily.
Sometimes the bee controller will discount a bit if you give him some of the honey.
Are you sure these are not African Bees?
This should help...
http://social.moldova.org/news/man-trying-to-kill-bees-burns-down-shed-125332-eng.html
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