swarm call out - what next?

[onriver]

I recently ticked the box on the new BBKA website that said I would be available for swarm collection under my profile, forgot about it , had a call yesterday from a local business ( slightly thrown by a call starting with this is Andrea, calling from x solicitors, about your bees....) turns out that they had a colony in their cavity / ceiling of an extension that had been throwing out swarms for the past few weeks. I went and had a look - the swarm had come and gone, leaving a trickle of bees from the original colony. Gave general advice and offered to come back if they see another swarm but couldn't do much about the original colony. Now wondering if I should have offered to take down their ceiling - they are worried about not being able to kill the colony on advice from the council but continued liability if they don't. I'm fairly confident (or at least willing!) to try - any advice?

 

[nonstandard]

I had a similar one last week, I am on the same list and received a phone call, "Hi I have a swarm of bees". I asked where they were and it turned out they were in a chimney, further investigation discovered that the chimney was attached to a listed building and that the 'swarm' had been resident for about four years!!

It turned out that the householder had scaffolding up to the chimney and a builder due the following day; however, as the builder would not work with the bees in residence he was expecting me to "nip up the scaffolding and entice them out into a box or something".

I offered him some general advice and told him that the bees would probably have to be destroyed. He rang me back later and it seems that he had been given the same advice from another beekeeper and that he was going to contact the council to see if they could deal with the bees for him.

I am no expert but believe that before you engage in any form of cut out/removal you need a watertight disclaimer for any damage caused.

If there is only one entrance you could always try putting a one way valve in there and trap the bees out and starve out the queen and brood. I have seen photos of this done where the bees are trapped into a box and taken away to unite into a queen + colony.

Personally I would recommend that they contact a pest control company and walk away.

 

[johnandyrob]

I recently ticked the box on the new BBKA website that said I would be available for swarm collection under my profile, forgot about it , had a call yesterday from a local business ( slightly thrown by a call starting with this is Andrea, calling from x solicitors, about your bees....) turns out that they had a colony in their cavity / ceiling of an extension that had been throwing out swarms for the past few weeks. I went and had a look - the swarm had come and gone, leaving a trickle of bees from the original colony. Gave general advice and offered to come back if they see another swarm but couldn't do much about the original colony. Now wondering if I should have offered to take down their ceiling - they are worried about not being able to kill the colony on advice from the council but continued liability if they don't. I'm fairly confident (or at least willing!) to try - any advice?

Think I had the same one last week told them thier was nothing I could do with out doing some dismanteling.