Bee Tree Opportunity

[LazyBkpr]

Oh man.. think of the challenge!!!

   First..   Relax....  Second.. like Blue said. One comb at a time..   Stop thinking about the whole thing.  Get it accessible with the chainsaw. Just be as careful as you can and go for it..    Before you know it you will look up and sway.. HEY, its almost done!!  OMG!!!  THERE is the queen!!  NO WAY!!!!  Yep, WAY!!   
   Yes,, when alone you do talk to yourself when doing cut outs, AND answer...   

   I have a couple of the big muck buckets for cleaning stalls..  probably 15 gallon size...  I put trash bags in them. The black bucket gets old and icky comb, the red bucket gets honeycomb. I have a 10 inch filet knife i use to cut the comb away, one piece at a time.  IT IS a bit of work, and most folks don't understand that until they participate.   Just keep putting one foot in front of the other without hurrying. Nothing to panic about, no worries, whistle while you work.. the Andy Griffith tune works well.      

[tmrschessie]

Like was said...make the best of it now. Take everything from the site you can use. To get honey, melt wax, etc....You might do like blue said while the tree is standing next time. It is easier to work the bees that way. Just a thought even though it is hindsight. Tom

[Jen]

Now See! There is Scott's best trait right there!! Even tho he made the 2000nth post before me, I forgive him for that, because of how he helped me the day I was running around the back bank getting exhausted with my first swarm ever.
 
His first words to you Tbone ""First..   Relax....  Second.. like Blue said. One comb at a time..   Stop thinking about the whole thing.""

His first words to me ""Take a breath... calm down... mix a drink... relax... take a sip of your drink... it's gonna be okay..."" (or words very close to that)

Thank you Scott for calming us down and helping us see that there really isn't a reason to panic ~ 

[tbonekel]

Okay, so I went out and finished the job yesterday of trying to remove the bees from this tree. I did the best I could and I don't know if I got the queen or not. I am going to check the hive today and see if the bees are working. I probably need to take another deep and add it. There really were a lot of bees in that trunk. It was a good learning experience for sure. When I check this evening and see that most of the bees are in the box, I will probably just close them up and bring them home. I will assume at that point that they like where they are. I will then give them some brood and eggs and see what they do with it. Here is a video of yesterday. Enjoy! You are more than welcome to give any comments or suggestions on what I should have done differently.....please.

[LazyBkpr]

suggestions on a job like that are sort of like being a backseat driver.  I think you did well for what you had to work with.

   A couple suggestions come to mind so long as you remember I wasn't THERE...

    It LOOKED like the comb at the bottom of the stump was accessible..   Cut it, fit it to frames and put it in the box..  IF there was any brood on that comb, eggs, Larvae etc, that is a powerful draw to the bees and will help them choose to go into the box.  A few small dabs of LGO inside the box with a que tip also seems to help them choose to go in.
   Operating without a Bee vac means using every option you can.  Not sure if you had access to any comb from a hive, but even adding open brood from another hive will draw them inside.   Smoke helps, but Bee Go or another repellant used to clear honey supers on the end of the log, slowly adding a drop or two as the bees move away can also help drive them where you want them to go...  sort of like herding cats, you cant really do it, but you can make certain places uncomfortable until you get them where you want them.
   Once set up with brood and many bees are IN the box. wait until late evening. Most of the bees "should" move into the box for the night, thats the best time to screen it up and remove it.
   having said that...    Like I said above, with what you had to work with you didnt do bad.  Nicely done cutting the stump up without turning a lot of bees into puree.   You did what you had to do to get the job done, and thats what its all about. Only time and many more removals will give you experience and more options. I am quite sure you learned a TON just doing this one.   So I say well done!!!!!

[tbonekel]

I was able to cut some decent sized comb out, but it had nothing but a little pollen and uncapped honey. Most of the brood was removed when I got into the tree the first time. It was located below the main trunk below ground level. That comb was placed in the first box and the bees left it. I have to dispose of all of that comb, because it looked as if the brood was getting eaten up pretty bad by shb larvae. Yes, I have learned a TON from this. Will I do another? I don't know yet.

[Intheswamp]

tbonekel, a couple of years ago I was all full of vinegar and ..., uh, well, you know.  I decided to tackle a cutout at a house a guy was rehabbing.  The bees had only been there for "about a year".  My mentor was busy and it was a "small colony" so I decided I would tackle it solo.  I started around 9:30 that morning and when I drove away from there I think it was around 7:30pm that evening.  That one year old colony of bees had comb going from the top plate on the wall down to the bottom plate, filling up the space between two wall studs.  The wall the bees were in was in very bad condition with cracks and crevices and exits and entrances everywhere.  I never saw the queen, there was a little brood but none that was viable to make a queen from, at least the bees that I hived didn't make one from it.  I did end up with about twenty pounds of honey comb (that is still sitting in a freezer) and some wax...for a days work (it was free bees!!!...yeah, right).  Other than too many hiding spots for the queen, the working environment was good...not terribly hot, in the shade, mostly floor level working...but by the end of the day I was zapped!!!!  I gained a whole new respect for folks that do bee removals regularly.  Here's a shot of the cutout before I got through cutting away all the sheet rock....it went all the way to the ceiling and down behind the baseboard...a year old, right!!!!! 


tbonekel, you did great!!!  You had a massive amount of bees to deal with and a fortress to penetrate!!!  A lot of people wouldn't have come back the second time!!!  You also got invaluable experience from it and you will look at future cutouts/removals with much more knowledgeable educated eyes.  And you may just have the beginnings of a great colony to add to your apiary's gene pool!!! 

Ed

[tbonekel]

This job is finished!! I went this evening and checked on all the bees I smoked into the hive and most of them were still in the box. There was about a soccer ball sized clump of bees still on the log so I sat down, smoked and watched, smoked and watched for about 30 minutes. Slowly but surely, they marched into the hive. Finally, most were in the hive and they started to quiet down and I put some screen on and brought them home. Since my house is only about a mile, as the crow or bee flies, I but some foliage in front of the entrance to make them reorient. I'm not too concerned about that because the surroundings of my back yard and where they came from are very different anyway. I put a quart jar of syrup on top and came in for the night.

Now what? Well, I think my plan is this. I do not know if the queen is inside this box, but there are too many bees for one deep, so tomorrow, I'm going to add maybe a few frames of brood (probably more young larvae than capped) and honey into the bottom deep. I'm going to shake the frames off before I put them in there because there are plenty of bees there already that can take care of them. Right now, they have nothing but frames and foundation, just like a package.  Then I will add a top deep to give them room to move about. If they continue to hang around, I will go back in a few days to check to see if they are drawing some comb and if they happen to be trying to make a new queen. I will also look for signs of an existing queen. What do you think?

[LazyBkpr]

  If you have a frame of brood, and a couple of empty combs this is what I would do...
   Pull the side frames with no or few bees on them and spread the center frames. Put the brood in the center with a drawn comb beside it... and close it up. Leave them alone for a few days... if your worried about the amount of bees add a deep in a few days to a week.   With luck the brood will lock them in, and the drawn comb will let the queen if she is there begin laying, and this will also help lock them in.
   If there are really a LOT of bees then add the second deep, but getting them started in one deep should be enough for a few days. I would worry about too much room to start with mostly empty frames.    Someone else might have a better plan.
   Scott

[tbonekel]

Well, the bees have been in their new home for 24 hours and they haven't left yet. Yesterday afternoon, I placed one frame of comb from another hive that included everything. I know I should have put another couple of empty frames with drawn comb, but I don't have that kind of resources. I can see now the importance of frames full of empty comb. Everything I have are in hives full of bees.  I looked for the queen, but didn't see her. I will let them work on the new stuff I gave them, then check to see how it's going.