I got a call today from a frantic housewife that said her husband had removed part of the exterior wall to access a swarm that moved in this past Thursday.
They had no idea what lay beneath, and after a little freaking out they called me.
The colony was completely exposed, but I had a lot of trouble finding the queen. I really thought they were queenless for a while, but at some point, the queen left out of there, think she may have gone up the adjacent wall void, and after I applied some smoke, and let things clear, I could not see any bees up in the wall recess.
A little later I saw a mini swarm around a small tree but was not convinced there was a queen.
Long story short, a swarm appears and begins to light on my trailer, and sure enough I see a queen!
I had to lay on my back underneath the trailer to get the queen, she actually fell right into my open hand before I got the chance to catch her with the queen catcher, so I just closed my hand, then put her in the catcher and into a medium.
These bees were very confused as they took forever to orient. The queen hadn't started laying yet so her scent must not have been that strong.
They were orienting more to the lemongrass than anything, but they were going to a cardboard box I had lemongrass in, the medium which had some lemongrass from the other day, and also the lemongrass on a paper towel I had thrown in the back of the truck, so they were just plum all over the place.
Even longer story short, I decided to leave the medium in place and went back and picked them up less than an hr ago.
Wouldn't you know not even ten minutes after I left the lady said they all went in the box and stayed in the rest of the day!
Pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/pyxicephalus/May122008...JP :-D :-D
Topic: I know, I know, I Said You Should Wear The Veil, I'm A Hypocrite! (Read 2688 times)