Tasks you wish you had walked away from.

[Anduril]

Had a call a few weeks ago from a member of the public to pick up some bees that were to be vacuumed up, after he had scaffolding installed the facia boards removed and some tiles removed, then for me to collect them. This well meaning person had bought a smoker, bee jacket and bee vac. After watching you tube videos he felt he could tackle it himself. I visited him and gave advice, informing him it was too early in the season to tackle this job due to the low temperatures and provided frames with elastic bands for him to use. Picked them up late last Thursday along with four bags of heavy comb, emptied the bees into a poly nuc, no comb placed in the frames except one which had little pieces of empty comb in it. Comb in the bags were squashed too much. Visited the bees today and not surprising they were queenless. Times like this I wish I had declined the offer to collect them.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

chance of picking up a hardly used cheap bee vac though

 

[Anduril]

chance of picking up a hardly used cheap bee vac though

Yes the £95 one used by a few on the forum.

 

[Fatbee]

Any decent comb with honey in you could salvage?

 

[Anduril]

Any decent comb with honey in you could salvage?

Unfortunately the comb is crushed, I can use the wax but if the queen had been there I would have fed the honey back to them.

 

[Anduril]

Opened up a few more bags, these contained honey soaked bees and one dead queen.

 

[Fatbee]

Shame the thought was there from him just little application! Don't get down, will always be more swarms and more cut outs - one thing you can rely on!

 

[For want of a better word]

I vow not to carry out any cut outs this coming season.... unless VERY easily accessible!

The epic four days cut out in Kellywick last year was literally "Crowd Funded" by the concerned residents... was one small colony of bees worth all the time?

One perhaps we should have walked away from!

Yeghes da

 

[madasafish]

I tell all callers there is a £20 callout charge.

I ask anyone who has bees in a roof or at any height if they have a ladder which will reach.


I refuse to go on top of any roof.
Will do NO cutouts. Period.

That culls most of the rubbish.

 

[abm]

I undertake such tasks as part of my business, and theres a charge.

I also insist the access is paid by the owners for either scaffold or cherry picker.

 

[BeeJayBee]

Had a call a few weeks ago from a member of the public to pick up some bees that were to be vacuumed up, after he had scaffolding installed the facia boards removed and some tiles removed, then for me to collect them. This well meaning person had bought a smoker, bee jacket and bee vac. After watching you tube videos he felt he could tackle it himself.

Fair play to them though, at least they tried to save the colony. It would have been much easier, and very much cheaper, to get a can of insecticide.

 

[Anduril]

I undertake such tasks as part of my business, and theres a charge.

I also insist the access is paid by the owners for either scaffold or cherry picker.

I am just a volunteer swarm collector. The bee vac is a nice piece of kit, well built.

 

[Anduril]

Fair play to them though, at least they tried to save the colony. It would have been much easier, and very much cheaper, to get a can of insecticide.

I told him it would have been cheaper to destroy them, but he didn't realise how messy the extraction would get. He told me about five years ago he had one colony destroyed but had not blocked the hole. He will now have to sell all the beekeeping equipment he bought and he hopes this is a one off.

 

[Poly Hive]

Well unless he washes the site down and seals up all the access he is pretty much sure to need his kit..LOL

I did a cut out of a worthless colony but there were masses of fermenting honey and a general hellish mess. It took three days to do and the last day I spent washing every beam, and every part I could access with Jayes fluid to mask the smell. The site was an apex roof over a sort of dormer window in a lovely Victorian villa in Aboyne, Royal Deeside for them what knows the area.

It was a sweaty messy worthless thankless job and one I am determined never to get involved in again.

PH

 

[Anduril]

Well unless he washes the site down and seals up all the access he is pretty much sure to need his kit..LOL

I did a cut out of a worthless colony but there were masses of fermenting honey and a general hellish mess. It took three days to do and the last day I spent washing every beam, and every part I could access with Jayes fluid to mask the smell. The site was an apex roof over a sort of dormer window in a lovely Victorian villa in Aboyne, Royal Deeside for them what knows the area.

It was a sweaty messy worthless thankless job and one I am determined never to get involved in again.

PH

He has washed the area with domestos and should have the new boards in place this week.

 

[birdsandbees]

I think it's funny that some folk charge to collect swarms, if they then told the people that given a couple of months they can then sell the colony for £100 or more or if kept longer it may be more valuable still, I doubt they'd be happy to pay.
Obviously I don't refer to cut outs as that's a serious task to undertake. Has anyone tried trap outs? Seem very popular in USA.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I think it's funny that some folk charge to collect swarms, if they then told the people that given a couple of months they can then sell the colony for £100 or more or if kept longer it may be more valuable still, I doubt they'd be happy to pay.

not the done thing to sell on a swarm unless requeened. Of course, if anyone mentioned the fact that we should pay to take them away then I'd gladly advertise the colony for them and let them collect it and put it in a hive, treat them etc etc.

 

[BrianO]

I think it's funny that some folk charge to collect swarms, if they then told the people that given a couple of months they can then sell the colony for £100 or more or if kept longer it may be more valuable still, I doubt they'd be happy to pay.
Obviously I don't refer to cut outs as that's a serious task to undertake. Has anyone tried trap outs? Seem very popular in USA.

Not as straightforward. Ones time, fuel expenses, fact you are sorting out a problem for the person.

Absolutely should charge, also your collected colony,probably needs treating for varroa, might be diseased, needs quarantining. All take effort and time and materials = cost

 

[Anduril]

I think it's funny that some folk charge to collect swarms, if they then told the people that given a couple of months they can then sell the colony for £100 or more or if kept longer it may be more valuable still, I doubt they'd be happy to pay.
Obviously I don't refer to cut outs as that's a serious task to undertake. Has anyone tried trap outs? Seem very popular in USA.

No problem charging for travel expenses, some people expect to pay. Your going off topic with trap outs, not really successful for getting the queen, she remains with the small colony that it left and usually starves to death, it is just a way of collecting bees and giving them one of your queens. Try searching the forum for trap outs, not something I would attempt.

 

[birdsandbees]

Oops, sorry if I went off topic by asking about another bee removal method that could be a task someone may have attempted and wished they had walked away from... Oh wait!

Maybe I can see why some might want to charge a small fee to collect a swarm hanging from a tree but around here it there's a bloomin waiting list to get your name on if you want to collect swarms, also it depends on whether the more established keepers of club committee want first refusal, found out a swarm was collected just down the road from me by our club swarm coordinator even though I was on the waiting list?

Anyhoo, back to the topic of the thread... Here's one, trying to pull a sheep out of a ditch, got covered in mud and head butted in the face for my trouble.