colony in a chimney

[phil edwards]

Hi all any ideas how to remove a colony from a chimney no way to get to it from above or below haven't bin to see it yet but will be going Monday cheers phil

 

[enrico]

A couple of choices.
Rig up a one way system through a box. You will never get the queen but you will constantly rob the flyers and weaken the colony. Unfortunately you will always leave the old hive so the chances are it will be populated again in the future
Destroy them, the same thing as above but now you have poisoned the hive for any future residents
Take the chimney down brick by brick until you can cut them out...... I wouldn't touch it! Others will though!
E

 

[Karsal]

It's a difficult one to address. If they have been there for some time and made it home it's nigh on impossible.
Smoking them out sometimes works. They hopefully abscond and find a new home.
I've just driven one large swarm from a very large old building where they swarmed into their sixty foot high chimney on a Thursday afternoon then started to come into the offices in their hundreds. The windowsills were full of them.
No pest control firm would entertain the job I was told.
I located the bricked up chimney stacks air vents and put a tissue soaked in Olbas Oil next to the vent over the weekend while they were closed.
They absconded and vacated the chimney over the weekend and took up residence in a bait hive on the fire escape. ( Damned Lucky I Would Think)

 

[Anduril]

https://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=37165 from last year

 

[Salamagundy]

A personal experience:

My neighbour called a few weeks ago to ask for help with a swarm that had just arrived and was taking up residence in their chimney. I went over with my emptied and cleaned workshop dust extractor, fitted with a 2,5m long, 100m dia hose, which I'd used previously to hoover up bees from cutouts under two flat roofs. (In that case, the first cutout was successful but the second wasn't because the bees were behind a noggin and I had to fit a 50mm hose to get at them. The bees seemed undamaged during their journey down the 100mm dia. pipe but most didn't survive the 50mm dia. pipe.) My neighbour was happy (!!!!) to climb up the roof valley (self-reliance is a way of life here in our valley) and then walk along the ridge to the chimney, as it was too high for a ladder. Safe on the inside of the chimney stack he pulled up the extractor with extension power cable on a rope, balanced it on the ridge, turned it on and then fed the 100mm hose into the chimney, having removed the cowl. He hoovered up the bees in the chimney and as many flying bees as he could but sadly there were some doomed bees left flying around the chimney when he lowered the extractor and came down off the roof. I popped a glove over the hose and brought the bees home, poured them, together with quite a bit of cement and soot, into a hive with some drawn comb, but with no brood, and left them until the following morning, when I went through the hive. I found the queen, marked her and a couple of days later I fed them syrup. They are now thriving and destined as a gift to another neighbour who has done her course and is ready to start beekeeping.

Some thoughts about this process:

The internal diameter of the pipe is important - 100mm is ok, but 50mm will kill the bees
The safety of the person climbing up to the chimney must be paramount!
This was a newly arrived swarm. I doubt that the dust extractor would have worked with an established colony that had drawn comb.
I've no idea what the typical distance into the stack bees will go to build their nest. A longer hose might be required.
There's a lot of luck involved - it would be easy to kill the queen.

 

[JohnRoss]

They may be in the top of the chimney, I removed a colony from a chimney once and it was no bother. They were all in the chimney pot. I lifted the chimney pot cover and the combs were hanging off it. you never know until you take a look.