# HELP - a wild bee hive in my shed



## ccortese (Dec 19, 2008)

Hello everyone. 

This is my first post to this forum and I do hope someone might have a suggestion or insight for me. My name is Christine and I live in a small town in far southern California, in the high chapparal on the Mexican border. We recently acquired our neighbor's property and when we started to tear down a small old shed in the back yard, we discovered a bee hive in the wall.

We propped the wallboard back up and closed the shed (to placate them). Our area definitely has Africanized bees (these obviously are not). We are remote enough so no bee keeper in San Diego area will come anywhere near us except for hundreds of dollars and only to kill all the bees.

I garden, and hope to expand my garden into that back yard. People are advising me that I should not have an actual hive that close to our house, given that they might become africanized, and that we should either kill them ourselves or open up the shed wall during a very cold night (we get down to about 30F so far and will drop to 20 in January) to either freeze them or drive them away.

I have _no idea _what to do about them. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thanks for your help. I am very frustrated about this because I rather like them.


----------



## damoc (Jul 14, 2007)

cold probably will not kill them out but mites this year probably will


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

First question to be answered is do you want to keep bees to pollinate your garden?

I'm not in the bussness to kill bees, I will give you a run down on how to save them if the above answer is yes.

 Al


----------



## ccortese (Dec 19, 2008)

Yes, Alleyooper, I would love to keep them if it is at all possible. Am a great fan of bees and have often thought in another lifetime (when I'm not so busy) I might want to keep them. Maybe the other lifetime is here now. Is there some way to prevent them from becoming Africanized?


----------



## Farmsteader (Nov 7, 2008)

hope you learn to obtain these for yourself, it would be so rewarding, my Father used to raise bees till he passed in '98.
THere is an Organic Bee group on yahoo with very experienced members that will explain what to do - these bees could be great asset for you, don't destroy them.
I am a nubee, (no pun,but funny anyways)- so i cannot instruct you otherwise i would , their is phone numbers in this group i mentiioned, it is worth a try, if you are handy at all you can also make your own hives or bee box to save these little wonders. Let us know what happens, oh by the way- Aficanized bees will chase you 1500 ft before stopping so you would know it -hahaha. Best Wishes, AJ



ccortese said:


> Yes, Alleyooper, I would love to keep them if it is at all possible. Am a great fan of bees and have often thought in another lifetime (when I'm not so busy) I might want to keep them. Maybe the other lifetime is here now. Is there some way to prevent them from becoming Africanized?


----------



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

Beekeepers in Africanized areas areas can replace the queen every year. 

That prevents the hive from raising its own replacement queens when the old queen starts to fail, and it prevents any Africanized drones from breeding a replacement queen that the hive would otherwise raise. That means no africanized genes in your hive.

OH! You might try to find a bee club in your area.


----------



## ccortese (Dec 19, 2008)

Terri, thank you for the information about replacing the queen to prevent Africanized bee genes. That's the kind of information I need to know. Also I suppose I'd need to know how to get the bees out of the wall into a hive box, if I was going to keep them.


----------



## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

Go here and read for a while, then come back with any questions it doesn't answer. We will try to fill in any gaps as needed.

http://wvbeekeeper.blogspot.com/2008/04/colony-extraction-from-within-house.html


----------



## XCricketX (Jun 7, 2006)

I'm in the same situation. Tonight my hubby showed me an old log not 100 feet from the house. There was a HUGE honey comb inside of it and bees all over it. They didn't chase us, so I guess they are not the africanized versions! LOL! I'm going to go to Iddee's link and figure out how to cultivate them... I'm a bit frightened of bees, but my husband was so excited and wants to give them a go.. I guess I'm snaggled into it. ^_^ 

Cricket


----------

