charlievictorbravo
Drone Bee
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2012
- Messages
- 1,802
- Reaction score
- 77
- Location
- Torpoint, Cornwall
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 2 - 14x12
I had a call today from the tenants of a local farm whose house produced my first colony from a swarm at the beginning of June last year. Their house is quite old and they have bees in the roof of a small extension on the front of the house. Their concern today was a swarm at the back of the house.
I went up to the farm and found maybe a couple of hundred bees flying about near the second floor eaves where two roofs meet. It did not look like a swarm but possibly a reconnaissance in force prior to a full swarm from the colony at the front of the house. The tenants were happy to have the bees in the front of the house but did not want any at the back because it was immediately above their main outdoor space – gardening, craftwork, barbeque, etc..
We decided that we should try to discourage them going into the roof at the back by smoking the area where the roofs met. They did not have a ladder and I didn’t fancy mucking about with angry bees up a ladder anyway. We came up with the idea of putting a bait hive as close as possible to the site and getting smoke in and around the roof where the bees were in numbers to try to disguise any pheromones left by the scout bees.
We found a piece of 20mm polythene water pipe and taped it to a long garden cane and pumped smoke from the smoker up through the pipe – it worked a treat! We managed to get smoke into the roof space, under the eaves and around the soffit. The first smoking got rid of most of the flying bees but after a short break we smoked the area twice more to make sure there was no bee smell left. We've left the "remote smoking" rig in tact, in case the bees come back to the roof space.
When we’d finished, we had twenty or so bees investigating the bait hive (one of Hedgerow Pete’s Video nucs) – then it rained and all the bees went home!
Here are pictures showing the smoking operation and the nuc with its brown sock, pretending it’s a swarm, with a few drops of Lemongrass oil to attract the bees. That's me wearing the protective gear, that's the client, being brave!
Now I've got to get back to cutting the grass.
CVB
I went up to the farm and found maybe a couple of hundred bees flying about near the second floor eaves where two roofs meet. It did not look like a swarm but possibly a reconnaissance in force prior to a full swarm from the colony at the front of the house. The tenants were happy to have the bees in the front of the house but did not want any at the back because it was immediately above their main outdoor space – gardening, craftwork, barbeque, etc..
We decided that we should try to discourage them going into the roof at the back by smoking the area where the roofs met. They did not have a ladder and I didn’t fancy mucking about with angry bees up a ladder anyway. We came up with the idea of putting a bait hive as close as possible to the site and getting smoke in and around the roof where the bees were in numbers to try to disguise any pheromones left by the scout bees.
We found a piece of 20mm polythene water pipe and taped it to a long garden cane and pumped smoke from the smoker up through the pipe – it worked a treat! We managed to get smoke into the roof space, under the eaves and around the soffit. The first smoking got rid of most of the flying bees but after a short break we smoked the area twice more to make sure there was no bee smell left. We've left the "remote smoking" rig in tact, in case the bees come back to the roof space.
When we’d finished, we had twenty or so bees investigating the bait hive (one of Hedgerow Pete’s Video nucs) – then it rained and all the bees went home!
Here are pictures showing the smoking operation and the nuc with its brown sock, pretending it’s a swarm, with a few drops of Lemongrass oil to attract the bees. That's me wearing the protective gear, that's the client, being brave!
Now I've got to get back to cutting the grass.
CVB
