Got a call from a woman Friday morning about some bees I had looked at for her about a week ago in a Cox Cable Pedestal. She said a Cox repairman was in the neighborhood and said he would be there a while if I wanted to come get the bees. Honestly, this late in the season, I really didn't want to mess with them, but hated to tell her no and figured the bees would be killed if I didn't go.
The Pedestal was surrounded by three big bushes and I had to get pretty aggressive just to get the pedestal lifted off. Quite a bit of fermented honey, and very little brood. No luck spotting the queen, tough conditions, not to mention the Pedestal went below ground level for nearly a foot. Between that and the contents of the Pedestal, made vacuuming bees and looking for a queen a bit challenging.
Decided that their best chance was to just to a newspaper combine with one of my smaller hives.
Capt44...Curious, why did you wait a day before doing the combine?