Back with Bees

Randy had made contact with a gas company with a bee problem in the employee recreation area.  It was a massive hive in a tree.  Randy sent out several calls for assistance and a fine crew showed up..

We arrived at 8:30 ready to work but in this day and age nothing is simple in the industrial world  We signed forms and attended a short film about visiting the plant and all the rules.  About an hour later we go to the tree to find this. It was a beautiful open air hive

Big hive and lots of bees.

 

Laura and her son Ethan.  He is a rock climber and got to do some high work assisting Randy who started out by climbing up into the tree.

The Ground Crew, Laura, Dennis and Josip.

Randy, Team Leader

Once up in the tree, Randy scoped out the job, sprayed the bees with sugar water and started cutting out comb.

Ed, our intrepid photog pointing to the real action in the tree.

The ground crew in action, taking the comb and putting it into frames. Because the bees had built the hive into a dense mass there were relatively few frames of comb for the hives.  About 8 frames for the standard super and 4-5 for the medium was all Josip could salvage.

Ethan on his ladder perch waiting for more comb to come down.

We removed the lid from the trunk and it became a platform for all the later work.  It worked very well but I soon found out what the bees thought of it when I say it spattered with golden bee poop.

The company had the area well marked and cordoned off.  Nice big signs too.

At this point, the lower portions of the hive have been removed and Randy and Josip are cutting down the hive limb and all.  It was cut loose and lowered to make the comb removal easier

Josip and Randy with their prize

Ethan takes over the hive

Still lots of bees on the hive.

Bees bees bees and some sticks and pine litter.  This part of the hive was all mashed together with little definition between panes of comb.  We cut it out slowing trying to maintain intact pieces but it was a losing battle most of the time.  Earlier the bees had been quite agitated but calmed down at this point.  Later when Randy went back up to collect those still gathering around the old hive site, they got hinky again.

This is the bulk of the bees.  We did not see the queen but she may have gone in when we did a number of shakes of the hive branch.  The bees were acting like she was there..  Josep added the medium super to the hive also. 

Randy, Laura, Ethan and Josep when we were done.  This hive will remain on site over night.  Josip and Randy will pick it up as soon as the guard shack opens tomorrow morning.

This was another good job by Backwards Beekeepers taking care of a bee problem at an industrial site..    On another front, Randy and I will be looking for replacement bees in the Spring.  In spite of our good intentions, the Mission Bees decided they could find a better home and left.  We had also installed bees at an Ashram, those bees left too. All prayers to St Sebastion, patron saint of bees, could not convince them to stay.  We will find some bees that know a good home come next Spring.  You can count on it.

 Golden bee poop...

Over The Hill

The Backwards Beekeepers Hotline had a couple calls from Palos Verdes that Randy checked out and discovered they were related.  Bob, an ex-sailor Pearl Harbor survivor, had a hive of bees under his eaves and the neighbors were nervous.  Ken who lives down the street decided he could safely house the bees if Randy assisted in obtaining a hive and every thing else. Done deal and once a date was selected we arrived.

This was a nice hive, fully exposed just under the eaves about 10 ft up.

It was a good looking hive, just getting active when we started.

Once the Mighty Bee Vac was hooked up Randy was up the ladder and collecting bees.

As always, Randy is the point man on the ladder.  I am the ground guy.

Bees started to show up in the collection super immediately.

As the Bee Vac does its job the comb comes into view.

And there are a lot more bees in the super.

Ted from across the street came over to take the picture (thanks, Ted, he gave me 300 of them on a disc,)  We like to involve every one so Ted got his shot at collecting bees.

Most of the bees on the outside are gone and Randy started to cut out the comb.

There was a lot of drone comb which I left if the piece fit the frame nicely.

This was one of several queen cells we found.  The brood we found looked okay to us  but the hive may have planned to replace the queen for some reason.  We don't know, only the bugs know.

A nice frame of brood.  Once the small outer comb was removed Randy used an empty frame to measure and cut out proper sized pieces of comb.  That made putting it into the frames very easy.

Bob, the home owner had a very nice front row seat all morning long.

Another queen cell

More good looking brood

The standard hive body is full of comb

And Randy is still bring down more comb.

We were lucky to have a nuc with some medium frames for the remainder of the comb.

The comb is all clear but when Randy checked the vent holes one did not have screen, there were more bees inside. Later he fashioned a bee escape and put it in place.  The returning bees should hang around on the outside overnight and Randy will return early tomorrow with his bee vac to collect them.  He will also set up a trap out near by.

I thought we had most of the bees in the Bee Vac.  Where are these coming from?

Bob was interested in everything, as long as it stayed outside and moved on later.

The Bee Vac collection hive is very full.

After vacuuming many many bees off that kept gathering on the nuc and full super I realized these were mainly robber bees looking for free honey.  Standing back on the sidewalk you could see them coming straight down to the area.  Once we moved the nuc and other pieces away from the area the bees left.  We took the bees and supers down the street and Randy installed them in their new home.  With all that brood they should stay there.  I have no idea what was going to happen to the thousand or so robber bees that got sucked up through the Bee Vac in to the collection hive.  Sometimes bees make bad decisions.  When we finally got done Randy headed off to collect a swarm and Norwalk and I drove home for a nap.  It was a long but good day.  One man got rid of bees he did not want another got a new hive.  It was a very good day in our bee world.  Thanks to Randy for doing the hard and high parts and to Ted for all the photos. 

Swarming A Hive

Danny with some of the booty from a large hive collected at Pierce College.  10 or so Backwards Beekeepers made the 6:30AM arrival to gather up these bees.  The bees had been touchy when approached earlier in the wee but were not bad today.  With a bit of smoke and sugar water they were relatively calm and only one sting was reported.  (I had to make a couple extra trips back to my truck for Bee Vac parts and neglected  to have my hat on and one girl spotted a target of opportunity.)

Tom putting brood into frames with Gwen capturing it for posterity.  Ruth gave a quick seminar on Housel positioning while this was being done.  I understand it better but not 100% yet.

There is a queen cell shown here.  One piece of comb had at least five queen cells as did others.  The hive was supplying bees for the area over a long period of time.

Using the Bee Vac to remove bees from the comb.  This was the inaugural test for the Mighty Bee  Vac and it worked very well after a couple small adjustments.  Almost everyone got a chance to man the hose.  There were plenty of bees for everyone.

The honey bucket is about to over flow.

This is near the end of the removal.  All the light covered area had comb on it.  Some pieces were two and half feet or longer.

Roberta checks the bees in the Bee Vac. 

The cutting board after all the comb has been cut down and put into frames or the comb buckets.

These are the bees as they arrived at Tom's for their new home.  The Bee Vac plastic lid was removed for the trip to make sure there was enough air and it was covered with a sheet for extra protection.  The design worked just fine and none of them got out.  But they were very annoyed when the sheet was first removed.  By the time they were ready for the hive they had calmed down a good bit.

There were special plans on how to remove the super from the Bee Vac.  Once on site Tom and I decided to use the direct approach.  He put a super full of brood on the bottom.  Then I lifted the BV super and Tom pulled out the bottom of the BV and this super was placed right on the brood super.  The same minimal approach was used for the top.   Remove the BV top and drop a top board on the hive.   Pull the plug off the bottom of the brood super and leave the area, quickly.

Tom and his bees should be happy in Highland Park.  One bee did follow us to the street but she left without out getting either of us.

All in all, a fine operation.  A large hive was rescued before the building it occupied was destroyed.  Had Backwards not stepped in the hive would have been sprayed.  Several club members left with brood for their hives, a couple of us had some honey and Tom has a new hive.
Best of all everyone got some valuable experience and the Mighty Bee Vac proved to be a full success.

I do have some videos from the event.  Once I figure out how to do it, I hope to have them up on youtube and linked to this site.  

Once again Backwards Beekeepers helps save the world, one hive at a time.