Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => HONEYBEE REMOVAL => Topic started by: D Coates on August 05, 2011, 05:52:21 pm
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Got a call yesterday from a gentlemen who's about 2 miles from my house who thought he had a swarm. As I continued to ask questions it sounded like a hive living in a tree. I told him I'll come by and see what he's got. Long story short, 18+ inch diameter hollow tree, 2" squirrel hole about 7 foot off the ground. About a 12 inches of calm washboarding bees outside the entrance/exit with strong traffic coming and going (the soybean flow is on). We discussed options and agreed upon a trap out and the price. My son and I will begin it Saturday morning. I'll be sure to get pictures. I haven't gotten to do one of these in a couple of years so I'm a little excited.
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You can't beat that. Way to go.
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I did my first trap out this year and it was cool as all get out. May attempt another on a bee tree to boost some nucs that I have pre-winter. Congrats!
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That's cool D. One thing I learned from my first trapout was how fast they filled up my catch box. I started with a single 10 frame with a frame of eggs/bees/brood and such and 2 empty drawn frames and 7 frames of foundation. On the third or fourth day, I swapped the seven frames of foundation for 7 drawn because there was such a flow on that they were filling the box. I think it was because it was such a strong hive inside the tree. It is amazing how many foragers are really out there. You get to see how many when you sweet talk them into going in the catch box. Hope it goes well and post pics
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I have been watching a few video's of the Trap Out. I have a friend that has bees in the side of his house. I am going to try the trap out this spring. Way to hot to try and mess with it know. He said they have been there for several year so waiting out the winter will not bother him. I plan on getting them into the new hive and then after the queen leaves have them clean out the old hive. that way when he removes the wall to clean up the old hive he will not have all the honey to deal with. Looking forward to seeing your pictures.
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Bees will rob out all the honey after you remove the funnel at the end of the trap out.
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I have a friend that has bees in the side of his house. I am going to try the trap out this spring.
Rock331,
Ardmore, OK? I went to college in Sherman, TX. Because it was in a dry county (Williamson, TX) we'd make road trips clear up to Ardmore on occasion to get the "Devil's water".... Ah, memories... Nonetheless, I would encourage you to get your feet wet with a trap out on a tree before you try it on a house. When the hive weakens as you trap away it's population there is a chance SHB's could take over the colony and make a God awful mess in the wall that you'll have to cut out anyway. I'm not sure how to avoid this and it will make me very leary to offer this as a house option. Someone like Iddee who's got a whole lot of trap out experience may have an answer for this concern.
Here are some of the photos. http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa190/Drew454/Trap%20out%208-5-11/ (http://s196.photobucket.com/albums/aa190/Drew454/Trap%20out%208-5-11/) I checked them yesterday and although the SBB is causing some confusion they're figuring it out and it appears to be going well so far. It's a 10 frame nuc but I've now got 2 "dummy" frames in there that take up the space of 6 frames. I'll replace them with frames if needed but I'd like to keep the population dense as they tend brood and raise a queen. While I was installing the cone a neighbor comes by and says he saw them move in 2 weeks ago. So while they are an established hive, they aren't as big as the bearding led me to think.
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I am learning so much reading that others are doing. I was wondering who to keep nuc mounted to the tree. I am looking forward to trying a Trap Out. I am going to have to try the house Trap Out. His only option is to kill the bees at some point. He is a carpenter so he will do the construction to replace what he removes. I am not going to do a cut out if I can help it. If I can get the bees out before the beetles take over maybe he can get in there and to the repairs and kill them.
On another note. Man it is HOT in Oklahoma. If the man was alive that invented Air conditioning I would kiss him.
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Cool! I loved keeping bees when I lived in OK.
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#1... Do it as soon as drones are flying in the spring. The beetles won't be so bad.
#2.. Man's first a/c was copied from the beehive. Evaporative coolers. Kiss your bees.
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Update: I checked the bees yesterday. If this was a 2 week old swarm as one of the neighbors indicated, it was a huge one. In the beginning I installed a deep 10 frame SBB nuc but reduced it to 4 frames with 2 3-frame blanks when I heard what the neighbor said. When I checked on it a couple days later it was completely packed so I removed a blank, added 2 drawn frames (one with additional brood) and a feeder. Fast forward to yesterday, I show up and there's a huge beard 8"x6" hanging off the front of the hive and a bunch of bees under the hive. I opened it up and the bees are chockablock everywhere and the queen cells look good. I removed the remaining blank and replaced it with 3 undrawn frames. I refilled the feeder with 1:1 and they lined up like cattle. I was in the process of taking a picture of it when my wife called. Nothing serious but the distraction was enough to forget to get new pictures. I'll get some this weekend.
So far it's proceeding as planned, though I did see one SHB in the nuc that I tested to see if it could withstand a hive tool. Nope, SHB's are still unable to survive hive tools. The bees were VERY quick to attack and removed the SHB that had failed the test. :evil: I'm a bit nervous about the SHB's in the tree hive but there's nothing I can do about this now.
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Update: Checked the hive yesterday. The frame of open brood and eggs I put in there on Friday didn't have any queen cells. I've seen no queen or eggs in there yet but apparently she's in there but not yet laying. The hive in the tree has apparently been slimed. The homeowner asked why there were bees at the base of the tree. I looked down and saw a mass of shiny bottle flies. Curious I looked closer and after some thinking I realized this could be slime from SHB's. I waved the flies off as I poked in there with a stick. Sniffing the "stink end" of the stick I smelled honey and yeast, though it looked like something a dog leaves behind. The hive does appear to be a little agitated and I've killed one SHB the last 3 times I've been in there (that's all I saw). The hive is VERY populated and there aren't many places for any SHB's to hide though the SBB does give them relatively easy access if they want to.
I assume the hive in the tree is now dead. Does anyone know how long it takes for SHB to emerge from pupating? I don't want the SHB's created from the trap out to attack the hive in the trap as I'll be out of town for the next 10 or so days.
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Lock up and go home. It's closing time.
Seal the vermin in the tree and take the hive away. Check the hive from head to toe.
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That's what I figured but thanks for confirming.
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Don, I can tell you from experience that SHBs can completely take over a weak hive within two days time to the point that the hive is terminated. I rarely have had them ruin one of my active colonies but have seen what they can do to hives that were in trees that fell over. If you can't get to the tree within two days time in most cases what is left in the tree is completely ruined.
They work extremely fast, mind bogglingly so!
...JP
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Thanks! I'm heading over there at lunch today to remove the hive from the tree. I'll put it on the ground and set it up for an early morning cap up and haul off. At this point the trap hive (9 deep frames, and one feeder frame) is very well populated, such that they always have a small beard hanging from the SBB. I've dealt with SHB's only a little and after seeing this they do appear to live up to their reputation.
Is there anything I can do to quickly (and easily) kill off the SHB larva that won't damage the tree? The hole in the tree is the size of an adult squirrel head.
Drew
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Fill the hole with spray foam. Seal them in.
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I thought the same thing. Considering there's a leak that's allowed the "slime" to ooze into the ground outside the tree I figured the maggots would follow that path and the foam would be useless though.
I pulled the hive down over lunch. Short of the place smelling like the aftermath of a really good fraternity party (smells like stale beer a few mornings after) all went well. I cleared the SBB and put it on a sheet of plywood so I could carry it at waist level without worrying about the beard falling off and landing on my lap and legs. :oops: Once I did that it now appears there are simply too many bees to fit into the box so I'll add a 5 frame nuc on top tonight to ensure I get +/- 99% of them when I haul them off in the morning before sun up. I'll shrink the hive back up once I get them to the final destination.
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Final post on this thread. I got back from England Saturday (business only) and reviewed the trap out hive that I picked up before I left a week prior. Strong 10 frame population, I saw no SHB's, and eggs (finally!). To top things off I found the queen, pulled her and marked her. I'll head over to review the trap out tree (everything has been removed). Assuming all is well I'll leave my bill.
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Congratulations! What a nice thing to come home to, definitely a stress reducer knowing your efforts are paying off.
...JP
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congrats.....