buzzzzzzzzzz new adventure

[j.w]

Addy I think your mission in life is to save the bees! Well now just think about it..............awhile back you had people who wanted to place bees on your property or something like that which you got involved w/ and took over the care of your own bees and went to classes and learned and are still taking more classes learning about all the things you need to know to care for them the right way. You are also helping teach others how to take care of their bees that they had way before you even got involved in it. Now you have bees down at one of your rentals that need your help. Things all happen for a reason and in the long run sometimes we get to see it all come together. Even if these bees don't make it you are still learning and in all that you learn you can put to good use in the future.
Good job Queen Bee addy and your Honey Bee Mark

 

[addy1]

Awww thanks .................... we were just talking about it, we started with our first hive 6 months ago.

We took a piece of that vinyl floor tile, draped a white garbage bag over it, used the tile like a scoop. We came up slowly below the ball of bees, sweeping them off the wall, they fell into the bag, once we had a bunch, like a few thousand, we flipped the top of the bag over and closed it. Got two more bags of bees, but not as many. After we tarped the door, full of slats, we opened the hive and dumped the bees out of the bag into the hive boxes.

In reading, we learned to take clorox and spray the wall with it to remove the smells that is attracting them, so tomorrow, like dawn, we will go over and open the room scope up any bees still in there and spray the wall, seal all holes, put up dry wall............done.

Then it will be up to the bees to survive. Hope they do. We started feeding them today, to help them out with nectar. Doing 2/1 syrup.

 

[addy1]

Long slow moving bee removal video. The first part got lost when my phone did not do the video right.

 

[j.w]

The bees made quite a mess for you guys. What a deal..........this is exciting watching you do all this. I can hear them buzzing like crazy! Yikes Mark got one in his helmet! You guys are brave. Oh now I see what you are doing w/that flashlight............looking for the queen. My eyes are glued to this video right now. Too bad there isn't some kind of a soft slow vacuum that you can use to suck them up in a bag and then dump them where you want them. Guess that would just be one big sticky mess tho. I think they are getting louder and sound mad now. Bees flying everywhere. Oh darn the video quit. Hope it all turned out good getting them outta there. Guess tomorrow you will be back for more. Good job you two!

 

[addy1]

The end of the video was it just sitting there watching the bees on the wall for a long time. We were outside getting the hive set up. Trying to clean up debris. If there is a bunch of comb around, honey drips every bee in the area flies in to rob. Then you have bee battles to the death, if the hive is not strong the robbers will go into the hive and start stealing honey and kill off the hive.

Yep I was looking for the queen, looking for eggs, uncapped brood anything that would indicate there was a queen and it is a healthy hive. There are a lot of bees, but if we do not have a queen there is not enough time for the hive to recover, i.e. grow a queen, mate, produce brood. The bees only live 6 weeks, if there is no replacement brood the hive will die off. It is the wrong season to get a new queen.

We did see a nice queen cell, i.e. a queen in the making, who knows it may still do fine. maybe................

You listen to the sounds, as they get disturbed they ramp up the buzzing, an indicator a little more smoke might help. But sometimes no matter what you do you can have an angry hive, they will buzz you try to sting you no matter what.

 

[addy1]

Here is how we removed the bee clump, had a smaller one to take care of this am. I sort of forgot to film yesterday. We have an old old vacuum that has holes in the tube, which makes a lot lower suction. We were able to use it to get some of the last bees out without harming them. Not the best way to do it, the bag was less traumatic.

The room was dark, when we turned on the light the bees starting attacking it, really surprised us how aggressive it made them, right over our heads lol.

We still need to scrape the wall of comb, re dry wall etc.

 

[Lisak1]

Wow! It's fascinating and skin-crawly all at the same time! Something about lots of anything in one place that kind of gives me the heebs. But those bees picked the "right wrong" place to build their hive. Anyone else would have exterminated them. Good job!

 

[addy1]

Thanks! I can't just kill them, they are in so much trouble any more. We use no sprays at home. Work on building up the good bugs, frogs, etc to control the bad bugs.
We had to buy two hive boxes and frames to do this, but even if the bees don't make it we can use the equipment at home.

 

[j.w]

I was gritting my teeth and sitting on the edge of my chair watching these vids! Do you just leave the door open now hoping the laggers will find the hive now or do you have to do a repeat clean up each day till they are all gone? Exciting to say the least! Those bees were loud and getting madder and madder at you.
Hope they live

 

[addy1]

We have the door shut tight with the tarp over it. We just went and looked there is a tiny clump up in the corner. Like maybe a fist size.

and WE FOUND EGGS! HAPPY DANCE!
That means we did have a queen, hopefully she is in the hive, if not they will make a new queen. We need to feed them a lot, they have a lot of work to do to get ready for our winter.

 

[j.w]

Yahooooooooo you have a queen I hope! Feed, feed, feed those little bees and pray they live. Do the ones you took out of the room look like they are happy in their new box?

 

[addy1]

Do the ones you took out of the room look like they are happy in their new box?

Well it is a little hard to tell one bee from the next, but the bees are staying in the hive box, acting like bees should so we think they are happy. Some are still hanging on the outside of the box, refusing to go into their new digs I wish we had found the queen so we would know for sure she was in the box. If not they will create a new one, but we are short on time.

 

[HARO]

Do the ones you took out of the room look like they are happy in their new box?

The ones who got to ride through the vac are all buzzing around yelling "Again, again!"
Seriously though, Addy, I find this whole episode fascinating. I did a report on bee society way back in grade school, but lost interest after being stung. Did a lot of reading in the encyclopedia (anyone remember those?) and any literature I could find, but have learned a lot from this thread!
John

 

[j.w]

Good they are staying in the box. Maybe the others will go in when it gets dark. They don't know how they got there and are just confused so maybe time will help them get their wits together again. How long does it take to make a new queen?

 

[addy1]

How long does it take to make a new queen?

not my pictures.
the eggs., tiny tiny

The queen takes 16 days from egg to adult, then needs to breed, lay eggs then the worker takes 21 days to get to working stage. So you lose around 45 days or more when you lose your queen to start having bees again.

And you need to factor in warm temps to even allow the queen to breed and you need drones around.

They get kicked out and die when winter comes around, booted to the door. What a way to treat MALES! lol