Cut out from a garage

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flimbin

New Bee
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Messages
6
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Location
North West
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
3
I've been asked remove a feral bees' nest from inside a neighbour's garage.
Is a bee vac necessary?
Any general advice?
I havent seen it yet, but aparently they havent been there long.
 
A bee vac insnt nessacary. I think most who use them tend to do so when they are in a very awkward place.
 
If you are lucky they won't have been there long so you can just treat them like a swarm. If not.....It is worth you knowing how many combs there are and how big the cluster is, so you know what kit to take - what sized box and how many empty frames with no foundation.

Take some strong string and a sharp knife and a beebrush or a bunch of grass to brush the bees. Gently smoke, then... I would cut of outside combs that have just stores in them, brush off bees and discard in binbag. I throw the stores away.
When you get to the brood nest, cut down the combs in turn from the top, one at a time. It is easiset to cut them down, then cut to size and put in box rather than have lots of bits of comb propped up all over the place.

Keep looking for the queen. If you find her put that piece of comb in your nuc as it is while you sort out the others - make sure you prop it so bees not squashed. Once you have tied in a few frames, put her on one and do the same to the comb she was on.

Then a comb at a time, cut the comb to fit your frames and tie them in and then put them in the box you have brought to take them away in. Try to be extra careful not to kill the queen. When you have most of brood nest, and queen in your transport box, remove all rest of combs from orginal site, remove bees and discard, put box wiht tied combs as close as possible to original site with lid and floor on until most of bees join the colony in the box - then close it up, wrap it in a sheet and take it away.

Feed them and fill box with foundation. You will need to discard these old combs... some people do it immediately the bees have settled and been moved, some don't want to kill brood and just gradually move the old comb to exterior of box and then discard.

A bit of a palaver, but fun. If there is not much comb it will be easier.
 
tie them in

String and wire has it's place. So do large elastic bands for holding comb firm in the frames.

Regards, RAB
 
Not sure what happened, but the chap who supposedly has the feral colony is not at home and hasnt called. Another neighbour told me about it but hasnt got access to the garage.
I got all excited - and I made a Hedgerow Pete bee vac :)

He mighht call tomorrow I guess- The neighbour, not Hedgerow Pete.

Beeboy, If anything happens, I send you PM.
 
Yes.

Not sure how I happened to log on as flimbin. I stopped using that name a while ago as I liked the name sixfooter.
 

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