I am still trying to figure out my heinie from a hole in the ground, for the most part, but I have been getting more experience doing cutouts. I have had a few that were easy, at least I realize they were easy now...LOL
This is no JP slideshow... ;) but I try lol. Anyway, my son and I finally took down the scaffolding after 2 weeks. A friend of mine, "hilreal", referred these folks to me. I am not sure if I should thank him or not :shock: ha. I took the job after he turned it down. In my defense it is only about 5 minutes from my house, so I figured they are almost neighbors. I sure underestimated this job, though. It seems I do that with most of them LOL
I built around 20 feet of scaffold. I don't like heights, so the last buck while walking on those old single planks gave me the shakes. The scaffolding was loaned to me by my old employer from my high school days. They were the same planks I walked on 20 years ago....scary. I think they still had some mortar that I had mixed splattered on 'em.
Had to remove about an eight foot section of rough-sawn cedar soffit, and fascia. Packed with bees and comb. Spent the whole day removing the comb. Got it into boxes. Worked my way in from the outside in both directions. The queen disappeared. I discovered another section of coal black, brittle, dead comb towards the top end of the active area. It stretched up another four feet or so. I removed this as well. I sealed off this area but left the other area open.
Left the place opened up with hive, brood, and lure standing by. Very little interest over the course of a few days. Lots of bees clustering in the opening. Swept them up. This went on over the course of about a week. Finally discovered a dime sized hole in THE SHINGLES. Right above the overhang there was major traffic. This had been above my head and out of sight.
I am not sure how it got there, but I could see the little bees grabbing pebbles and tugging. Kinda cute seeing them do that, but very frustrating seeing how many bees were left over. Made a cone, directed by Iddee. Swept remaining bees from orignal area. Filled void with insulation, replaced soffit and fascia, and caulked all cracks and crevices.
Cone was mounted over the hole and monitored for a week. The first two days resulted in about another 2 pounds of bees. I swept 'em up and combined them all with one of my weak hives.
Finally the last two days resulted in only stragglers flying around. Sealed up the hole after removing the cone. Tidied up and took down the scaffold.
When we were half-way through these last two weeks, the homeowner gave me some new info. The homeowner two homeowners before him had informed them that "we always had bees in there". They estimated that the bees had been there over 10 years.
I am bummed that I could not outsmart the queen, but happy to have so many bees to strenghten my hives. I say thanks to iddee for allowing me to call him and pick his brain. One thing I have learned is how much I don't know.
Pictures aren't too great, but... The homeowner was very intrigued and video taped nearly the whole first day. Then he left the tape in his pants pocket and his wife sent it through the washer LOL. Oh well.
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Topic: Finally tore down the scaffolding.... (Read 2721 times)