Yesterday I removed bees from yet another soffit down in Chalmette, Louisiana. This hive had been there since before hurricane Katrina. This colony could easily have been 10' long or longer but never truly expanded their comb sections such as other hives normally do in my area.
We had a front come through which had the bees on their combs for the most part, very little activity throughout the day for a colony with good numbers such as this.
They allowed me to drop the soffit section, thus exposing the hive with no fuss whatsoever, but shortly afterwards began acting defensively. They definitely were on the defense and you could smell alarm pheromone.
As for videography I would give myself a D- on this one. Sorry about that, the sun was not very cooperative and a good part was human error. :-D
I don't expect anyone to sit through the entire video, if you do, you get a gold star. ;)
I did manage to transfer the queen into the set up as I later discovered, once I picked up and was gearing to call it a day. That was a nice treat for such a long day.
...JP
Five And A Half Year Old Hive Removed From Soffit