Just had a call to remove 2 colonies

[hedgerow pete]

this one you said was in a roof void, this is either a top down job or a bottom up job, if its top down are we going to fall of the roof? or are we able to get up to the nest in the ceiling , just because you can get to the ceiling bewarned the nest could be another couple of feet up after that. so say we are going up so climb onto the scafold after sealing the room off and remove the plaster and timbers which are called lathes, basicy smash your way into the void once again when we get to see the nest we decide first can we do it safely before starting other wise spray and leave it then rip the nest out with a broom fill the bucket with the lid and go home, say we can see it and we can get to it so same again brood box with floor screwed in place realy we want to set it as high as posible but still able to look down into it. So brood box set nest visable start again with cutting out the combs honey stores or brood makes no differance each one banded into an empty frame and slotted in place if you are looking at a massive set up only worry about framing the lower parts of the combs because they are the brood the stores are higher up and can go into the bucket. Dont worry about the rush of bees as they will start to go to the brood box as it get filled some times a massive nest will need two brood chamber boxes one on top of the other worst i have ever done took three and four buckets so have plenty of spares just incase, so once we have a nest transfered into the box we are again looking for clumps and so queenie, a dust pan and bush is a good one as we can sweep them off the celing into the pan and shovel them into the brood box, or use your bee vac, finished not quite we have two ways to finish either take what you have and run , leaving behind a massive spraying of fly spray to kill the last reminants or we can sit there for a few hours till say 5pm or 6pm so they settle down inside there new home seal the chamber then run away , worst case problem with tha is the bees go out of our brood chamber and go back to there old one and then we are doing it all again but this time late at night,

if after that little bit of reading you still have aquestion just give me a call the mobiles switched on ready for you,

good luck take plenty of video s and photos and let us know how you get on, regards pete

 

[hedgerow pete]

forgot to say my finger are now hurting from all this typing

 

[Firegazer]

Thanks very much for giving forum members the benefit of your experience on this, HP.

I've never done this, but aim to give it a go when I get the chance, despite the fairly nightmare vision you paint of a room full of bees all attacking you in waves !!!

Best of luck to VEG, and I hope your fingers recover, HP.

 

[hedgerow pete]

most beeks only do hedges or tree branchs below 6 foot , which i dont blame them as they are very easy to sort out , i was the bloke that can dismantle a chimney from the inside of your loft to remove bees or several times i have cut the out of trees , the last one was 10 foot up in the air off a scaffold whilst stodd in a main road being watched by central tv cameras, buildings are just as bad to do

the trick is to get your head around the basics, get to nest safely, remove more then 75% of nest and leave, but on no account leave a single bee behind because thats bad for you , i sprayed and killed four swarms/nest last year two were for rentokill, i have an aggreement with one of thier area managers if i cant remove i kill, because i killed those nests last year he gave me over 15 more that were just sat in hedges, to bee a bee keeper you have to see that some times you just have to sit a think how on earth am i going to get to them but once its there go for it

 

[Black Comb]

Pete
Do you charge for collecting swarms?

 

[DulwichGnome]

BeeVac

Sorry but my beevac is buried under a load of other stuff at the moment but here is a drawing of it.
It's a basic box with two holes one end and one the other, one of the two is able to be covered. There is a screen, OMF will work, fixed on the diagonal to separate the two sets of holes. Fit a BB with lid over the box, seal, fit vacuum to the open one of the two hole, a hose to the other side and adjust the 'pull' with the Suction Cover.
I have been thinking of putting a baffle over the top so the air above is not so disturbed.

 

[hedgerow pete]

thats a beautifull bee vac ,

as for the other question for do i charge yes every time and up front, if i can walk up to it i charge £35 ( going rate is £45 with a proffesional)
if its a mare to get at I charge depending on the job so a high one will be nearer £50, chimneys are £100 and complete mares are at least £150 plus. there is also the bumble bee issue to sort out several times last year i was called to a bumble bee nest if its a easy pick up i charge a £10 if its a pain i charge the full £35.

Now heres the completely weired stuff, I hate swarms and cant stand them i have never ever kept one as they are usless for my style of bee keeping but to a novice they are a cheap and easy start, I also belive that as a beekeeper you are a face of modern beeks and as such you should show responsiblity to bees in general and to the general public, most of the time the public are on our side "as bees are endangered " why they think that i dont know!!

most of the calls i get have been refferals from either the local rentokill man or the council and police, the rentokill man dont realy want them as they can be a pain unless its just a quick spray and kill them off. to do a bad removel can take a day easily some time two, with his costs that makes it very exspensive for the punter who wants to save the bees but to not pay for it, to pay him back i send all the wasp nest i find his way , sorry love i dont do wasps just bees call mike he does them. i also mention if its needed any roof/building issues i see at the same time so people get a complete service

 

[Hombre]

. . . Fit a BB with lid over the box, seal, fit vacuum to the open one of the two hole, a hose to the other side and adjust the 'pull' with the Suction Cover.

Yes, very nice BeeVac DulwichGnome, but from looking at it, can I make the following observations, which may or may not be practical.

I understand that the underside in the picture is sealed! Good.

If you turn it over and were to put a sealed box underneath, the following would happen - I think

The Bee Input port is high pressure and the bees whizz in like good oh. The screen is very low pressure so the bees fall into the relatively calm air of the box. In a similar way that a river if it meets a large pool drops it's silt where the current is slack due to the increased area.

The deeper the box the more bees could be accommodated before becoming adversely affected by the airflow.

All you Bee Vacuum users out there, and DulwichGnome in particular, does this make sense to you or am I just deluding myself?

 

[VEG]

Well what a day!
I dont think these bees can be saved due to their location. I filled a plastic box about 2 foot square and about a foot high with just sealed honey. No sight of any brood whatsoever. There seems to be another void that I cant get access to, and this is where I think the main brood nest is. I have to go back tomorrow to finish up. It looks like they will have to be sprayed as they want them gone. I have learned a lot today mainly would I try and do another cut out I dont know. I never knew how much mess it would make. Absolutely everything gets covered in honey. So not many pics you will notice the lack of bees as well as they all seemed to be in the void that I cant get to.

 

[VEG]

More

 

[BKF Admin]

Great pics Veg,it looks like that comb could of been there a while.
Something I learned a while ago was when to give up and walk away from a cut-out,not an easy thing to do but very sensible

Personally I run a mile from cut-outs,they are not for me..

 

[RoofTops]

Looks like they are dead to me, even at this time of year they should have come charging out to repel your attack but there is hardly a bee in sight in these pictures.

 

[DulwichGnome]

Nice pics Veg, sounds like you had a good day!!

Re beevac, I think with it below the air above should be still *the baffle might help* also with frames and foundation in the box the bees should be protected. As I say I've not tried it with honey bees but there is always next year!!

Mike.

 

[VEG]

Went back today to see if any more could be done but ended up spraying them. The reason there wernt many bees is they were in another void that I just couldnt get to. There were a lot of bees but just not where you could not see them. This was confirmed by the ambush I got when I started spraying. I really didnt like to do this but it was done properly. The only entrance hole was blocked to prevent access by other bees.
I have told them to give me a call when they are ready for me to try and get the ones out of the flat roof.
I think the one thing I have learn't from this is that sometimes you just have to admit defeat.
Found out as well that they used this house to film part of Dr Who

 

[m100]

There seems to be another void that I cant get access to

So now they are dead, are they just going to be sealed up and left to decay in situ?

 

[roche]

That must of been horrible - so counter-intuitive when we all try to keep them alive. But no option.

On a slightly different note, it would be interesting to know the cell size they were building...

 

[thurrock bees]

I picked up a bees nest on tuesday,A builder had removed a chimmley and moved them to the end of the garden, he called me saying that he did not understand why they had returned to the chimmley?, i arrived climbed up the scaffholding and removed them like you would a swarm ( half the chimmley had been removed), i got 90% of the bee's after being attcked a few times( dive bombed) and picked up enough comb to fill a 90lb bucket.
I held a couple of combs in empty frames with eletasic bands, and gave them drawn super frames( all i had) placed them in a nuc box with some fondant on top, i think with careful feeding they will survive, dont know about the Queen yet. I asked for a donation towards fuel and was handed a wad of notes telling me that is more than a donation and he will keep my number. He expressed that he wish he had called me before he removed them.

 

[MuswellMetro]

so if the comb is old...why have they not died of Varroa

 

[VEG]

m100

Yes they are now dead. They will be removed when the builders do their bit.

 

[PaleoPerson]

Found out as well that they used this house to film part of Dr Who

I hope you did not blink......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFKa9tQqzrs