Cut-out Stragglers

[Tim Hall]

I've been getting a lot of calls for swarms and cut-outs this year. I know the time is going to come soon when I'll need to pull a hive though the INTERIOR side of a wall. Does anyone have any tips for how to deal with the stragglers on the interior of a building. It's obviously not good to have bees buzzing around inside an occupied building for several days. Thanks for any help with this.

Tim

[db_land]

For indoor removals, I use a mechanics light enclosed in #8 hardware cloth (basically I form a wire globe around the light). The bees accumalte on the wire where they can be easily vacuumed off. They also go to any windows or other lights. The injured, crawling bees are more of a problem to track down/clean up.

[Troy]

I've had to do this twice and with my vacuum I've never had a problem getting them all.

One hint though is to try to be done just before dark and then hang around cleaning and vacuuming until it is totally dark.

If you use the wire covered light as suggested earlier you should have easy work of it.

I wonder if a double screen light would be worth the trouble? The first screen right near the light would just keep them from getting burned. The second screen could be fashioned more like an inverted cone to guide the bees up and in then they'd trap themselves.

[Tim Hall]

Thanks for the replies. Would you use Bee-quick or some other repellent to keep them from going back to the hive cavity?