# Any tips on this bee removal?



## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

The ad I've placed in the paper for honey bee swarms has certainly kept me busy - not going to get swarms, but calls from people with bees in their house.

So far, I have 2 honey bee removal's from houses for sometime once I get my bee vac built. I have another guy I need to check on for honey bees in a camp wall. And I was given a honey bee hive (with bees already included) due to the ad.

Yesterday's call was from a lady who saw the swarm move into their building. The honey bees (yes they are honey bees - I was over tonight to look) have been in there for less than a week - they moved in either last Sunday or last Monday.

The bees moved into a garage wall - the bottom part of the wall is stone, and above the stone is aluminum siding. The bees are entering where the stone ends and the aluminum siding begins, and we are hoping the bees are directly above the entrance where about 2' up is a window sill.

I've never done a removal before (the owner is taking care of removing the siding while I'm there to help), but what can I expect with this recent swarm. I'll use a smoker (although with them in there for less than a week, I doubt they have any honey). 

How much comb would you expect for them to have built? Will there even be enough comb that all the bees will be on the comb, or will they be all over?

Any tips you can give me on what I can expect with this less than a week new swarm moved into a building would be great! 

I plan on taking my bee suits, veils, and gloves for me and the guy removing the siding. I'll also have the smoker and a hive. I'll take a knife along just in case there is enough comb to cut to fit into frames. Anything else?

(I'm kind of nervous.)


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## mare (Aug 31, 2006)

no advice to give you just wishing you good luck


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## ace admirer (Oct 5, 2005)

i've heard of lightly spraying a water/sugar mixture on bees without stored honey....seems i've read that the bees will start grooming each other to remove the sugar...never tried it myself.

rubber bands to hold the cut comb in the frames, a brush, scraper

and a can of spray insulaton to seal the entry so the next swarm of bees will not go to the site....unless you will be called back for that one also......


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

This removal was unsuccessful.

I got there around 9:30 and as we started to peel up the aluminum siding, we find a solid wall underneath. So at this point we pretty much know the bees are behind the stone wall.

Start taking down the stone, and finally get to the bees. One small cluster of comb that I started to take down but not many bees at all. Once I had the little bit of comb down, I tried getting the little clusters of bees here and there.

By 3:00 I was getting no-where and I think the queen and most of the bees had gone over a floor joist. So at this point, both myself and the owners agreed that we had done all we could and so we sprayed them to kill them.

I was really hoping this would be an easy catch as they had been in there for less than a week, but it just didn't work out.


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## mare (Aug 31, 2006)

bummer


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Now that you failed to do the home work first and killed honey bees cause you didn't know enough about the jobs at hand take the time to learn.

Should have just did a trap out to start with.

 Al


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