swarm capture

[jim b]

How long might one need to wait to ensure that all the bees in a swarm have moved into the nuk that was placed right close to the hole in the wall that they had settled into? Yesterday I taped a #8 screen cone over the hole and today there were only two that i noticed exiting, but that tells me that there are still some in there. I haven't checked for the queen and before i arrived on scene, some insecticide had been used so i cant be guaranteed she's even alive. They seem to have moved into the nuk fairly well, it was baited with a frame of old comb and a frame of (mistake?)-uncapped honey.
They seem to have arrived only within the last two days according to the property owners, if that makes a difference. They said that the set-up could stay there for awhile but i couldn't give them any idea how long it would take. i didn't know if it was going to work at all, i've not done this before.
What might be the next move?
As always, all advice is greatly appreciated. -jim

[Michael Bush]

IF they have only been there for two days then it will be easier to get them to leave it. IF the queen is dead, they probably will easily settle into your nuc. But if the queen is in the house, she, and her entourage and the nurse bees probably won't leave right away. At least not until they run out of food.

I don't know what to tell you. Unless you see the queen in the nuc you won't know where you stand. IF the queen is in the nuc, then take the bees home because there won't be any significant number left in the house.

When doing this on an established hive (in the house) I've never gotten the queen to leave. But I have severely depopulated the hive in the house with the cone and then brought a different strong hive back to rob it out. Use some honey on the entrance to get the robbing started and let the strong hive rob it. If you ever do this, you'll need lots of supers because it doesn't take long to fill them up with honey that doesn't get dehydrated. smile.gif

[justgojumpit]

Michael, would it even be safe to use this honey since there had been pesticides used? Or does the pesticide only get on the wax, which the robbing bees won't take anyway? It just doesn't seem like something I would want to expose a strong hive to! That said, pesticide poisining didn't kill the whole hive, so maybe they cleared it all out. Who knows for sure?

justgojumpit

[Michael Bush]

I have no idea what the state of the colony in the walls is. But if there are bees alive in the house, then there must not be too much insecticide. The problem is the honey NEEDS to be removed from the house (for the protection of the house, not for the bees).

[jim b]

i'm inclined to believe that these bees have been in the wall for two or three days. The property owners have been out gardening and only noticed them Friday or maybe Saturday. i will check with them again to see if it can be pinned down a little better. i also think that because i worked with them without any protection and without incident that they are a very recent arrival. HOWEVER, i am also very new to bees and have only gathered five swarms (two of which were "normal") and so i must realize that i dont know much. If it does confirm out that they indeed have only been there a day or two, there should be no honey, only a small amount of wax, and should not be of concern,or no? i did notice that the foragers were bringing in pollen. That might change the equation from the way i'm inclined to see it,perhaps? jim

[honeyman46408]

"i'm inclined to believe that these bees have been in the wall for two or three days. The property owners have been out gardening and only noticed them Friday or maybe Saturday."

I got a swarm once that had been there for 2 days that had capped brood so sometimes by the time the homeowner notices them ( 2 days ) it has been a bit longer then that.

[jim b]

...and it gets longer every day.
Sorry to beat a dead horse, but i'm a bit frustrated tonite. I got a call from the homeowner about the bees i'm trying to bring home from her garage wall. She told me that they are returning in the evening and entering through the cone i taped over the entrance! Now what? I've thought about drilling an 1/8th inch hole through the drywall inside and squirting some almond extract in. Bad idea? Also, is there something that i could apply to the tip of the cone to confuse or detract or distract them only on their way back in?
I don't know if these folks will like the idea of someone cutting into the wall just for some bees. These are the sweetest bees i've come across yet and i hate to think that they they might someday not be able to get out because their entrance gets plugged up with a bolt forever. Any ideas? jim

[honeyman46408]

I have only used the cone a couple of times and have not had them go back in throught the cone but they can find different ways to get in and sometimes it takes a while to stop all their entrances.
How small did you make the hole in the cone?
I wrap mine around a 3/8" wood dowel.
Did you unravel the wire at the end of the cone so that there is 1/2" or so of stright wires sticking out?
Just some of the things I do GOOD LUCK

[Michael Bush]

I like the trick Honeyman is talking about. If you unravel the end of the cone you can get the hole tighter and still let the bees out. It's always difficult to get a cone bee tight and stop any other holes. Bees are very persistent. I like to put the cone up and brush or vacumm the bees into a box and remove them every day. That way they aren't trying to get back in because they are at my house. smile.gif That way there are fewer and fewer bees for me to worry about and for the owner to get excited about. Most of the time when I've used the cone method the homeowner sprays the bees with insecticide. I usually have to probe to find that out, but they freak because they assume airborne bees are angry bees and they spray.

[Ronnie Elliott]

How about drilling a small hole into the cavity at the top, put a small plastic tube into the hole, and put some "Bee Be Gone" in. The queen, and all will come out, pronto.

[honeyman46408]

It is very hard to "run" bees off brood most of the time they wont leave even with "Beego" and if the wall is in ahouse sombody is going to BEE mad on you when the smell gets inside :D

[Michael Bush]

Before I would try beego, I would certainly try the Beequick first. Beequick smells fine. Beego will make all the people run out of the house pronto.

[db_land]

I've tried Bee Quick in an effort to speed up the process, but it didn't work.

jim b: honeyman has it right - you need to shape the end of the cone so that bees have to push out and the little wire ends keep them from returning. Also, do you have a NUC with a frame or two of brood and honey/pollen just outside the entrance? The returning bees don't try so hard to get back into the old nest if you give them this alternative. :cool:

[Jim Fischer]

> I've tried Bee Quick in an effort to speed up
> the process, but it didn't work.

That's why the product is NOT sold for use
in removing hives from walls. There are too many
variables, from wall cavity size to a beekeeper's
incorrect assumptions about where the colony
actually is in comparison to the entrance hole.

Just between us members of the group, I use an
electronic stud finder to locate the studs, and
then use a digital non-contact thermometer to
find the size, shape, and location of at least
the brood area, if not the bulk of the colony,
which then allows one to drill/cut a hole in a
strategic location, and use a shop vac hose on
the exhaust port of the shop vac as a "high
velocity/high volume fume injector".

But given a very large wall cavity, no repellent
will work unless you were willing to use an
insane amount, and maybe not even then.

That said, we do get a lot of highly specific
and technical questions from people in the swarm
removal business, and many of these questions
come in periods when honey harvesting would
not be possible. Professionals apparently find
it useful in some cases.

But don't expect any handy hints in public.
The liability implications of selling anything
for use in "bee removal" are too great, moreso
given the presence of AHB in some areas.

You have no idea how many e-mails we get
every week from civilians about this subject.
We send them the contact info for the nearest
bee association, and tell them that Bee-Quick
is sold ONLY to beekeepers.

So, let me repeat. It is intended for use
in Honey Harvesting only. Any other use is
your idea, not ours.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

...and my entrance hole cones all have the red
plastic "bee escape" cones (Dadant) at their top
to assure a correctly-sized hole. You have to do
some fiddling about with wire cutters and duct
tape to get it on the end of a screen cone, but I
think it is worth the extra trouble.

[jim b]

Thanks everyone for your input. I will not be able to do anything with this situation for awhile and the homeowner is being very cooperative (as well as very interested) and will let the nuc sit there til i can get back to it. I checked today and saw no bees exiting, however i have not found the queen in the nuc either. Thoughts are that she was a virgin and failed to return or she's just still in the wall or something elce i haven't thought of or something elce someone can enlighten me to. Time will tell(or maybe not). Again, thank you all for your help.

[Walt McBride]

Jim ,you should have a private post wating to be read from me.
Walt

[Bryon]

I ran into the same think last night. I got a call from a friend that they have bees in the wall of there house. the bees are in the space between the closet wall and the outside brick wall. they didnt' want to cut a hole in the wall so my friend the bee keeper said there was nothing he could do to help them.

Where can we get some of this bee quick/bee gone stuff? Is there a place in Phoenix that sells it? I assume it's more of an "alternitive smoker" type fuel.

the swarm we picked up this week was also in a tight spot and it would be nice to have something handy that might help get them out when at all possable. I think this stuff and a bee vac would have helped out a lot the other night and maybe with this swarm at my friends place.

If I had the stuff to build a TBH, this would have been a good place to get bees to start with.

[dcross]

<<Where can we get some of this bee quick/bee gone stuff? Is there a place in Phoenix that sells it? I assume it's more of an "alternitive smoker" type fuel.>>

Any bee supply house should have one or both, they aren't an alternative to smoke, they are bee repellents. Bee gone/Bee go/Honey robber will also repel humans pretty effectively, Bee Quick won't.

Without cutting open the wall, I would use a screen cone to get them out, then let them rob the honey out and seal it all up really well. But that will take a long time and requires some understanding from the homeowner.

[Jim Fischer]

>> Where can we get some of this bee
>> quick/bee gone stuff

>... Any bee supply house

Here's the phone numbers, e-mail, and websites
for some of the larger Bee-Quick dealers

http://bee-quick.com/buy.html

[jim b]

Fishing for more thoughts on my little situation- i remembered that i checked the nuc and found maybe at most one frame of bees in there on the old combs. I also put a couple of new frames with triangular comb guides in to fill out the five frame nuc. The bees had just barely started to build new comb on these, however, the wax was not white. It was off white, kinda tan in color. Maybe the wax-makers are still in the wall and some of the bees in the nuc are re-working the wax from the old comb? Would they(the wax-makers in the wall) be very not inclined to leave their task to exit the new hive? Not even for a cleansing flight? I'm afraid that when they found their way in around my cone, they carried plenty of nectar in with them, not to mention honey from the old combs in the nuc. How long could the ones in the wall last living off that haul? Not to mention all they gathered before i arrived on scene. Sorry to carry on about this, but i'm really ruminating on this a lot. I'd like to not lose this one.

[Drifter]

I modified a Dadant escape cone as had bees getting back in on me on a job . I took a piece of embeding wire and used it as a pivot for a one way door . It worked well until they found another way in . They are very persistant to say the least . During the day when they should be flying i would walk all around the house and watch . It sounds to me as they have found another entrance .

Drifter