Pool House Bees

This is the target it is in the ceiling of the bathroom of a long abandoned pool house in Palos Verdes.  The contractor, John, found Ed Garcia.  John needed the bees removed so the pool house could be demolished. Ed asked to use the Mighty Bee Vac and I agreed if I could come along.  He also recruited Ty who is hopeful beekeeper.  We needed every one for this job. .

 

In the videos you can see Ty reaching up into the ceiling cavity to vacuum off the bees and then cut down the comb.  At this point Ed and John were cutting the comb and putting it into frames.

This was the hive before we started.  As big as this is, there was one 2-3 times as big in the site previously.  You could see the marks where the comb had been removed.  Unfortunately the exterminator did not seal the site or do anything to discourage bees and they came back.

This is the comb that is put into frames by Ed and John in the videos.

Ed and John with comb in place.  I expected two supers of comb but once we removed most of the honey, 20-30#, we had one super and two frames.  We tossed the extra frames and kept the full super.  This took longer than expected, about 3 hours, but Ed and Ty ended up with a nice supply of honey.  John has a site he can work in once he smokes bombs it and an sprays the comb area with some ammonia.

The bees are at Ed's for now.  When I installed them and removed the Bee Vac top and bottom they were a tad agitated.  You would be upset too if you were sucked down a vacuum tube.  They should settle down in time but this was a very big amount of bees.  One day Ed will be moving them to a new home in the San Fernando Valley.

A full days work and a good job by everyone.