Interesting day yesterday...

[Intheswamp]

Ok, so I'm at the office, it's dead...not much going on.  I'm tinkering with hobbling together that little queen cell frame I built and a customer comes in.  But, he asks me about removing from bees from his house.  Sounds interesting, but I'm gun-shy on removals unless I can stand on terrafirma and use my bee vac.   Well, I tell the guy that I'll come by and see what he has when I get off from work.  He leaves and I go back to tinkering with the queen cell frame (I'm a slow thinker and builder!!!  )

A few minutes later another customer comes in.  The first thing out of his mouth is, "You remember those bees I told you about...".  Another removal.  These are at floor level in a delapidated shed attached to an equally delapidated mobile home.  There is some comb visisble from what he told me.  The roof on the shed has fallen in and swung toward the trailer leaving the exterior wall where the bees are located free and clear.  I would be working on a cluttered (naturally) cement pad.  But, no electricity and I've only removed bees without a vac one time....a small four-comb external colony on a limb.  This would be new to me removing a larger colony without the vac...I guess I could get a generator from somewhere...I left it with that guy that I'd give him a holler in a couple of weeks.

Well, after work I went over to the first guy's house to check on his bees.  He has LOTS of bees on the outside of a portion of soffit.  We're looking at them and I'm not liking the thought of removing them.  The service line for the house's electricity comes in directly beneath where the bees are congregating...with out a solid lift of some kind to clear that power line...no way.  Well, we're talking and he says there's bees in a tree over there do you think they're connected with the ones in my house...  So we walk about 100' past a vacant house and a big cedar is standing there with a steady stream of foragers going and coming...nice stretched out football shaped entrance going in at about chest high.  I'm thinking Cleo-Hogan style trapout, maybe. 

Neither of these have mentioned $$$ to me.  The one in the shed I could deal with for the bees...they're definitely feral and that colony is on a path of what I'm calling a bee trot-line along a series of branches and springs on their way to a small river.  I've got several feral colony locations plotted along that line.  The colony over the power line would definitely be a $$$ venture.  The bee tree....might be interesting.

So, not counting the bee tree, I've got three colonies that people are wanting removed...only one am I committed to...and it could possibly be the hardest.<sigh>

I don't know why I didn't get a shot of the bee tree...I may stop by today and get a shot of it.  Here, in the meantime, is a shot of the bees on the soffit above the power line.





Now why doesn't someone call me with an easy nice big prime swarm?  :'(

Ed

[Slowmodem]

Ed,

Get an inverter that you plug into the lighter in your car, and carry a long extension cord.

This is an example of what you can get:

http://www.amazon.com/outlets-inverter-adapter-notebook-MRI3011BU/dp/B004MDXS0U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1400777429&sr=8-1&keywords=12v+120v+car+inverter

Anywhere ac for vacuum or whatever. 

[iddee]

The converters are nice, but read carefully first. That one is 300 watts. Mine is 1000 watts. My vacuum is 1100 watts.

[Intheswamp]

Yelp, it'd take a big inverter to handle my shop-vac.  I had a 1500w generator that worked perfect with my shopvac...but someone browsing through my garage one day decided they wanted it (along with an air compressor) so the generator is available no more.

[LazyBkpr]

Yelp, it'd take a big inverter to handle my shop-vac.  I had a 1500w generator that worked perfect with my shopvac...but someone browsing through my garage one day decided they wanted it (along with an air compressor) so the generator is available no more.

   grrr....  Dont pity the thief the homeowner catches....
   I have a generac I bought about fifteen years ago. It still starts on the first two pulls every time, but its 8000 watts, so a bit of a pain to load up and haul to cut out locations... still, it does the job.
   When your off the ground like that, part of the price is renting the scaffolding. Scaffolding with the floor/bracket things you stand on. Set up your vac, hive body etc, etc right beside you. Yes its a pain getting up and down, but at least while you work your secure.  A minion to hand stuff up or down to is a huge bonus.

[pistolpete]

I have to say, you bee removal guys are brave.  I'm in the construction business, used to do carpentry now I do flooring.  I look at that picture and I see a mess that will take at least $5000 to clean up.  Assuming that's a vaulted ceiling inside the house, the bees are living between the rafters.  It gets hot up there and that's why they are bearding like that.   I think in the middle of summer it will get hot enough under there to melt the wax.

[Intheswamp]

Lazy, any expenses other than my time will definitely be on the homeowners.  The one pictured above I'm not interested in doing unless we've got something that can *very safely* clear the electric lines coming.  And even with that I'm hesitant.  The lure of these types of "free bees" have long ago weakend for me.  This would definitely have to be a $$$ cutout.

That little 1500w generator I had was perfect for grabbing with one hand and loading in a vehicle.  It was a little Coleman (not one of the nice, quiet ones, though).  I'm tossing around the idea of picking up another one of some sort, if I was more serious in doing cutouts I might go ahead and look for one but as of now I'm holding off...$$$ 

Thieves...don't *even* ge me started.  I have more pity for a rabid dog...it didn't intentionally get rabies but the thief intentionally stole.

Pete, in the location above the homeowner has offered to help (probably until the first or second sting).  Any of my removals that I do or talk to someone about I explain that I am NOT a carpenter and repair is on them.  The other side of that wall is apparently empty attic from what the owner told me...he said he hasn't seen only one or two bees up there.  Bees have been there for ten years and we've had plenty of hot summers down here with no apparent staining on the soffit board...from what the owner told me.  I would think that beneath those bees that there is most likely some footprint stain at the entrance but I didn't see any home/wax staining.

Ed