A couple of weeks ago I got a call about bees living inside a bathroom wall.

At first I was told that an older couple ( the callers parents) had begun renovating a home that they were living in and that they found that they had bees living inside a bathroom wall, and that they needed the bees to be removed so that the bathroom could be renovated.

I explained over the phone, that the bees would need to be removed by cutting into the wall, either from the inside or the outside. Then once exposed, I would remove the hive, comb, bees and all, then it would be up to them to effect the repairs and seal the area so that no other bees would find the smell of the old hive site attractive and move in again.

A couple of weeks later I got another call and was asked to come do the bathroom bees removal. I was told that the tiles were removed and that the wall was drywall, so I gave them a low ball estimate of the cost I would charge for the removal of the bees. I did not want to charge a lot to an elderly couple in this economy.

Then when I got to the address I find that I had not been told the entire truth!

The house was not owned by an older couple that was doing renovations… It had been purchased by a company that buys fixer upper distressed properties, who then basically guts them and rebuilds them for resale! Well, I don’t like being lied to, but even worse, when I got into the bathroom, I find that not only are the tiles still there, but they are old, thick ceramic tiles, and that instead of drywall, the bathroom wall is made from 3 inch thick concrete!!!

I have to decide if I really want to do this bathroom bees removal job or not.

OK, time to rethink that estimate for removing these bathroom bees!

I am a beekeeper, not a one lady demolition crew… so if they want me to break down this wall and remove their bees, I am asking for more money to do the bee removal job! While taking a big hammer to a wall and beating away is great therapy for any repressed anger, it is no way for someone in their 50′s with Fibromyalgia to spend a day or two, unless she wants to pay for her actions later…. (Which I did… a week later and I am still paying for the activity with increased fatigue!)

first hint of comb after beating up the wall for more than an hour!

Finally after beating up the wall for more than an hour I get my first glimpse of the hive. you can clearly see how this wall is constructed, that’s 3 inches of concrete and thick chicken wire, along with tar paper!

The actual hive was about 4 inches further over to the right, this was only about 2 small strips of comb along the electrical conduit against a stud. So I had to break even more wall to access these bees. The area I ended up breaking out was about 2 ft wide by 3 ft long. The comb went below that 3 foot make by another 4 feet, but luckily I was able to pull the comb out in huge sheets, then cut them down to fit into my Styrofoam box to take home and hive.

With all the beating on the wall to get to the hive, I was not surprised to find that not one single bee was on any of the comb. The bees were coming and going thru the small hole you see above so I was able to use my BeeVac to gather about 6 lbs of bees to take home with the brood and place into the hive. After 3 hours of beating on the wall and pulling out the comb I was exhausted, and shaking, so I excused myself from the site for the day and called a friend to come help me finish in the morning. I offered half my bee removal money to help me get the rest of this hive.

The crew told me that there were in fact 2 hives one on this wall and another on the adjoining wall. They had broken the wall in both places and I could see bees coming and going from both holes so I assumed that I would be dealing with 2 hives and simply couldn’t see myself beating up any more wall the next day.

The next morning Bobby met me at my house and we went to go finish the job of removing these bathroom bees.

bathroom bees

When we got to the house and entered the bathroom this is what we found, it seems that all the bees left the wall and joined the queen up along the window frame. So it was a simple task to use the BeeVac to remove the rest of the bees. But looks can be deceiving, and this is the case…

Can you guess how many bees are along the ceiling in the photo???

Lets try another 8 lbs of bees!

We got about half of them into the BeeVac and I had to take them home and release them with the bees from the day before, and then come back and get the rest of them, while Bobby broke into the other section of wall where the workers reported more bees.

When I got back Bobby reported that there were bees or hive in that section of wall, only rotting timbers, but you could see how the bees had been going from the one wall thru to this wall, making it appear as if there were actually 2 hives when it was only one massive hive full of bees.

All in all this hive of bees in a bathroom wall included 18 lbs of brood comb, and another 17 lbs of bees!

Luckilly, these are gentle bees and have so far decided to stay in their top bar hive.

I did not use any smoke during the removal of these bees, so the brood are just fine and were even hatching in the styrene box while I was removing them from the wall.

So how did the bees get inside the wall in the first place?

We live in California, Earthquake country… After an earthquake, the outer wall cracked and two adjoining 2×4 support studs separated about 1/4 of an inch, this structural damage and outer crack gave the bees access to a nice well insulated home inside the bathroom wall.

Related articles

• 1 Mobile Home, 3 beehives !(commonsensebeekeeping.com)

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• Bee Boxes Set up…waiting for bees.(ahealthylifeforme.com)

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• A different sort of bee day (twobeehives.wordpress.com)
• Texas couple trapped in bathroom by bees (chron.com)
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The hive of bees that I removed from under the mobile home are gone!

One of the biggest disappointments any new beekeeper, or old beekeeper for that matter, can go through with their bees is absconding!

This year I have been removing swarms and problem beehives from peoples property.

This is a great way to increase your bee yard population and has some added benefits.

1. You get to augment your bees with stronger local genetics
2. The bees you get this way are cheaper than buying package bees

I have noticed a big problem with doing this however, and from the other beekeepers I talk to, it seems to be a problem they experience as well.

I wonder if this could be a side effect of CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) of if this has been a problem for many years. But because I am a new beekeeper, I don’t have the experience to tell me if this has been a problem of beekeepers for some time. The beekeepers I talk to express the same problems with a large portion of new hives taken from swarms and local “cut outs” seem to have a higher than usual incidence of absconding.

Bees Absconding From New Hives Is Common

I have read that a common problem with the Italian Honeybee is that they sometimes forget where their hive is, and wonder if this may be one reason for this absconding phenomenon.

Adding some brood comb to a new hive sometimes helps prevent bees from absconding

I am told that if you add some brood to a new swarm or package bees you have a better chance of them staying in the hive you put them into, however this is not always the case, and your bees may still decide to abscond.

This was the case with the mobile home bees, I removed them from the mobile home with brood, and managed to find the queen during the removal. I placed the queen into a queen clip and put her into the box with the bees and brood during the cut out.

When I got the bees home, I then tied the brood into the frames of my top bar beehive and while I was doing this I kept the queen inside the clip and placed it onto the floor of the bee hive.

When I finished I then released her into the bee hive, on the floor (Probably my big mistake) and then dumped the remaining bees into the top bar beehive and closed things up. In retrospect, I think perhaps I should have placed the queen bee onto one of the many frames of brood, but I thought that the brood pheromone would entice her onto the comb.

I then left the bees alone for several days, During which time I went out on a swarm call to retrieve a basketball sized swarm out of a pine tree in somebody’s front yard.

The next day, both the swarm and this hive of bees left within minutes of each other in 2 huge clouds of bees!

I have had swarms abscond before, but this is only the second time that a hive with brood have decided to abscond shortly after introduction into a hive.

These two hives are top bar beehives that I built out of fresh lumber recently, and I wonder if perhaps the smell of green lumber may seem offensive or unattractive to some bees.

I did not place lemongrass oil into these two hives right before introducing the bees like I usually do, and perhaps without that extra attractant, the new wood smell is just too overpowering. I only use untreated lumber when I build my beehives, so that I don’t have to worry about introducing them to additional potentially harmful chemicals.

I am told that swarms will abscond from a new beehive as much as 70% of the time and that bees from cutouts where the brood has been over smoked at nearly the same rate, however with healthy brood the rate of bees absconding drops to somewhere around 10-20%. I am seeing that second rate at about 30% or perhaps a little higher.

What are your thoughts on bees absconding from a new hive?

1. Do you see the same rate of bees absconding from a new hive as I do?
2. Do package bees abscond as often as swarms do?
3. Does adding lemon grass oil seem to reduce the chances of a swarm or new hive absconding?
4. Does anyone use Queen Excluders to lock a queen into a new beehive until she is actively laying brood in the new hive? If so how does that seem to help?

Bees Related articles

• 1 Mobile Home, 3 beehives !(commonsensebeekeeping.com)

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• What you always Wanted to Know about Bees and Were afraid to Ask(mistresssopia.wordpress.com)

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• Weather is daunting – Bees are a Thriving!(honeybeesandme.com)

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• Checking the Hive After the Swarm(ahealthylifeforme.com)

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• Bees on the move in Utah(abc4.com)

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I have started doing beehives and swarm removal with a friend of mine.

This mobile home is situated on a property that is also home to an orange and grapefruit orchard and has become the home to not one, but 3 beehives!

3 beehives under mobile home

The beehives are situated under an old mobile home that is still on tires, however the skirting is coming loose and so is the press-board underneath, which has left access for bees to come in and set up housekeeping. this created the perfect situation for some rather large

.

So Mary and another beekeeper Gary, and I set out to remove these beehives.

We each brought our own equipment for the job and there was power available for us to use.

For my part in tackling this beehives threesome, I brought my BeeVac, extension cord, in addition to bins to place honey comb, a queen clip, hive tools, knives, hammer, and of course my beesuit!

But I forgot one major thing that would have made removing my one of the three beehives much simpler… No vacuum hose!

I couldnt believe I had forgotten that of all things! Without the vacuum hose the BeeVac is worthless, well so much for doing things the easy way…

We each took on one of the beehives, and mine was to the rear of the mobile home.

I found some old unused comb to one side of the main hive. So I removed this unused beehive comb, no sense in leaving an open invitation to bees, by leaving one or more empty beehives behind right?

I then went on to tackle my beehives on the rear of the trailer.

This one of the beehives extended between to I frame supports from the outer edge to approximately half way underneath the mobile home!

These beehives were huge!

Just the comb from the rear one of these beehives filled an 18 gallon rubbermaid tote and an additional 15 gallon styrene box!

First I fill the styrene with comb from my beehives I am removing, then I carefully go over each one, looking for the queen while transferring the bees and comb into the rubbermaid tub. I was proud of myself I managed to find the queen bee, and was she a beauty!

This is how the queen bee I found from my hive of the 3 beehives looked, nice plump and golden

By finding and caging the queen bee from this one of the beehives I was able to get a large portion of bees to simply go into the styrene box with the queen. I did however help things along with my bee brush gently brushing the bees off of the remaining comb from the beehives and placing them into the styrene box where the queen cage and queen were located.

This one of the beehives had a lot of brood, and very little capped honey stores.

The honey from the beehives at this site is amazing!

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My First Bees Are The Africanized Honeybee

Northward Migration of the Africanized Honeybee

Northward Migration Of The Africanized Honeybee

This is what I learned about dealing with my Africanized honeybee colony

Remember my first hive of bees? They are highly Africanized honeybee s.

The africanized honeybee is just like any other honeybee except that when disturbed the africanized honeybee will attack in greater numbers, follow for a greater distance, and the africanized honeybee will wait for you if you try to submerge in water for even if for a considerable length of time.

Here are some Africanized honeybee facts

• The africanized honeybee is here to stay
• Beekeepers must learn how to deal with africanized honeybee colonies for their safety and the safety of others
• The Africanized honeybee collects more honey than its gentler Italian honeybee cousins
• You can not tell the difference between an africanized honeybee and a regular honeybee just by looking at it
• Africanized Honeybee queens often emerge a full day ahead of other queens
• Queen Bees open mated in areas of africanized honey bees will likely produce offspring with some degree of africanization
• The level of aggression in africanized honeybees is directly related to how many africanized honeybee drones a queen mates with. The higher the number of africanized honeybee drones a queen mates with the higher the level of aggression in her offspring.
• You can stand next to an africanized honeybee hive and may not be stung. Just like other honeybee varieties they are unlikely to sting you unless threatened.
• Regardless of africanization, all guard bees are aggressive and will sting if provoked.

Safer Handling Of The Africanized Honeybee

If you have an africanized honeybee colony, you want to re-queen with a docile queen as soon as possible. Remember a queenless Africanized honeybee hive will bes far more aggressive than a queenright hive. Even calmer honeybee colonies will become aggressive and more likely to sting when they are queenless! However requeening an africanized honeybee colony ASAP is required in order to create a more docile hive, the queen pheromones run the hive, so a docile queen will emit pheromones that will calm the bees more than the pheromones from a queen that is easily agitated. The offspring from the docile queen will replace the more aggressive africanized honeybee offspring (brood and adult bees) as they die off.

The new brood from a docile queen will be docile. Over time your africanized honeybee hive will become the docile bee breed of your queen bee.

• As soon as you can identify the africanized honeybee queen you should kill her!

The africanized honeybee queen bee’s brood will be every bit as aggressive as the rest of the hive, so she needs to be identified and killed ASAP, this will cause the Africanized honeybee colony to become temporarily more aggressive during the time they remain queenless. This must be done with the hopes that the new queen will mate with more desirable drones in your area. However keep in mind that if you live in an area with africanized honeybees you will still have some degree of africanization in the new queen bee’s offspring. A queen bee makes no distinction when it comes to the drones she mates with, africanized honeybee drones are reported to fly higher and further than the more docile honeybee drones.

As soon as you can, you need to order a new queen bee from a reliable queen breeder, I ordered my queen bees from Mott Bee Farm I had been told good things about them from a beekeeper friend of mine and I liked their prices. I ordered 2 of their proven honeybee queens to replace the queen in my africanized honeybee hive, and to create a second beehive (nuc).

Keep in mind that some africanized honeybee hives will supersede your queen with another queen of their own… This is a common problem in beekeeping and even occurs in the more docile European honeybees.

Many queen bee breeders will mark your queen for you for an extra fee. I paid the extra $1 to have the queen bee marked, this helps you to quickly spot your queen, and you will know if she has been superseded if, you ca not find her or find an unmarked queen in her stead.

Worker bees (both the africanized honeybee and european honeybees) live an average of only about 45 days during the summer months, when a docile queen begins laying eggs, her gentle brood will be replacing the more aggressive africanized honeybee that are currently in the hive, so that in thoery after about 2 1/2 months nearly all the honeybees in the hive should be of the same type and temperament as the new queen and you will no longer have a hive of the more aggressive africanized honeybee.

This is why I personally do not mind if, the honeybee swarms I capture are africanized honeybee swarms, I know that I can replace the queen bee and make it a calmer hive within a couple of months.

• Keep Unwanted People And Animals Away From AnyAfricanized Honeybee Colonies

Africanized honeybee will attack in mass when disturbed… so place a fence or other barrier around your beehives to prevent people or pets from disturbing the africanized honeybee hives and being stung.

• Always Wear Protective Bee Proof Clothing When Working Africanized Honeybee Beehives

Wear protective clothing such as your bee suit, gloves, hat and veil and be sure to tape any openings to prevent your africanized honeybee from getting inside your clothing.

Complete Professional Bee Suit – XL
Complete Professional Bee Suit – XL. For the control of insect pests and pest control. Complete Professional Bee Suit – XL pest control product. Get rid of target pests fast with Complete Professional Bee Suit – XL
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If an africanized honeybee (or any honeybee) gets inside your beekeeping veil, keep a cool head and do not rip it off when you are near the hives!!! Yes a sting in the face is painful, however unless you are allergic, one or two stings  will not kill you.

Africanized honeybee venom is no stronger than regular honeybee venom, so a sting, is a sting, is a sting. Do not freak out, you have decided to be a beekeeper…. bee stings are inevitable! Even with docile beehives…

The africanized honeybee and even calm honeybees can sometimes manage to sting you even through your bee protective clothing, so if you are allergic make sure you always have your sting kit handy and have another person present whenever you access any beehives your africanized honeybee beehives. Even if they are docile hives you should always wear protective clothing, docile bees can be aggressive too!

• What Do You Do If An Africanized Honeybee Colony Is Accidentally Disturbed?

If you disturb an africanized honeybee hive, and are being swarmed… RUN! You can not outrun them, and they will follow you, what you need is distance from the hive, and fast! Just because you are in your bee suit and relatively safe, does not mean you should calmly walk away from the hive. Honeybees lack prey drive and as such they will not chase something simply because it is running away so you will not excite more bees by running.

If you are working an africanized honeybee hive keep in mind that you will be swarmed in greater numbers than you would be when working a docile hive of Italian honeybees. If you begin getting stings through your bee suit or gloves, you may need to close the hive up and go back later. Do not enter your home or car with bees swarming you, you will only end up with them in with you and others will be stung while you remain relatively safe inside your bee suit.

The Africanized Honeybee is here to stay, however with proper management and frequent requeening you can lessen their impact on your beekeeping operations. I have no problem now when it comes to the thought of dealing with the africanized honeybee because I now have an understanding of how they got here, and how to safely handle an africanized honeybee hive.

Some honeybee keepers do not mind if their honey bee colonies are the africanized honwybee, they are interested in honey production and the africanized honeybee is reported to produce more honey than the more docile honeybee breeds. Honeybees here in southern California (and other southern states) are often kept in more remote desert areas for large honeybee operations where few people are able to be in direct contact with the bees.

• Keep the brood chamber open especially with the africanized honeybee
  

Keeping the brood chamber open in a honeybee colony reduces aggression even with the africanized honeybee. Commercial beekeeping operations that are interested in honey production will frequently add more brood boxes to a honeybee hive than most backyard beekeepers, this not only helps prevent swarming but encourages a much larger honeybee colony, which can in turn bring in more honey. When crowded even european honeybees can become quite aggressive! If your hive has filled the brood chamber and you placed a queen excluder on your hive, you should either make splits or add another brood chamber in between  the 2 brood chambers to encourage more growth of your colony. Checkerboard your brood frames with empty frames to give the queen more space.

Even if you dont use a queen excluder, the bees will drive the queen into the lower boxes and out of the honey storage. The queen needs space to lay her eggs, without this space the colony feels crowded and the workers will create new queen swarm cells to split the hive and create a swarm. When they first swarm, the old queen leaves with about half of the hive!

Bee Related articles

• Backyard Beekeeping – How Do Bees React to Seasons? (backyardhoneybee.org)
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• Backyard Beekeeping – How Do Bees React to Seasons? (aboutbees.net)
• The Killer Bee – A Background of America’s Most Dangerous Bee (backyardhoneybee.org)
• Backyard Beekeeping – A Way to Help Save the Honeybees (backyardhoneybee.org)
• Backyard Beekeeping – A Way to Help Save the Honeybees (aboutbees.net)
• Backyard Beekeeping – Three Alternative Hives (aboutbees.net)
• Backyard Beekeeping – Three Alternative Hives (backyardhoneybee.org)
• Why Did I Begin My Journey Into Bees And Beekeeping? (backyardhoneybee.org)
• Insecticides linked to honeybee die-offs – UPI.com (drugstoresource.wordpress.com)
• Why Did I Begin My Journey Into Bees And Beekeeping? (aboutbees.net)