Bee Rescue, Day 2

After a good nights rest, I got up early to go to the Farmer's Market and check on the bees. Apparently, the only way to convince a group of bees to stay in a new box is to ensure that the queen is in the box. We had failed to get the queen. The outside wall of the garage was covered in bees. And the neighbors were hot (this is a condo). They wanted the "research project" stopped immediately and the bees disposed of. Only one person was interested in what we were doing.

Ernie went to the bee supply store for advice on how to proceed and was loaned a wet-vac and a special box to connect to it. We spent the next 5 hours vacuuming bees into the box and then emptying them into the hive box. Fortunately, we were able to get the queen early on so we didn't have to keep vacuuming up bees we had already captured and moved. But many of those that were displaced during the vacuuming, headed for the comb we had dislodged the night before. The old saying "busy as a bee" is based on truth, these bees never stopped. They remained focused on their job even when they were drowning in honey.

Yep, drowning in honey. We had put too much comb in the new hive the night before and the honey had leaked out and was pooling up under the cart the hive box was setting on. The bees in the lower box literally drowned as the honey leaked down. So we had to empty the box of all those poor little carcasses and throw out about half of the comb.

As soon as we got it cleaned out, the bees we had vacuumed up and emptied into the hive box started acting much happier. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures of the vacuuming or the happy hive due to having so much honey on my hands, in my hair, on my clothes, and all over my shoes. The next pictorial installment of the story will have to wait until the bees get to my house and start helping me garden.

Bee Rescue, Day 1

A friend of mine has bees. He's not supposed to according to the bylaws of his neighborhood association. But he's told them that he's doing research and got a waiver from the town. During the winter, a group of bees from one of his hives decided to move...into his garage. From outside, you could see the bees buzzing around the area where the joists for the deck connect with the outside wall, but there were never too many, so he waited until spring to relocate them.

Friday night was the night to move the squatters into a new hive and then to my house. We had 5 people to help with the move, but only 3 had "outfits" so myself and the other fashion-challenged person were the photographers. The other three looked like they knew what they were doing. All three have beekeeping experience but no one had ever moved a colony like this before. Normally, a new box would have been out for them to swarm to, whenever they were ready. But in the absence of a prepared box, they made their own housing decision.

The first step was to cut a hole in the garage ceiling and determine the size of the hive. A small hole for what looked like a small colony. After cutting the hole, Ernie filled the inside with smoke to anesthesize the bees. Then he expanded the hole, and then he expanded it further. The final hole was about 10 times larger than the initial opening. By the time the opening was large enough to see the entire comb, the garage was full of smoke and bees were flying everywhere. Amazingly though, they weren't stinging.

Ernie cut the hive into pieces in order to dislocate it. After the first cut, we were all drenched in honey. The next day, I put on a pair of the gloves and could barely get my hands back out they were so sticky. The honeycomb was moved into the hive boxes, and then we all went back inside for a beer. Originally, the plan was to move the hive to my house that night, but because there were so many more bees than originally thought, Ernie felt it was better to let them calm down overnight and move them the next morning. So we plugged up the hole, wished them a goodnight, and went inside for a beer and a movie.