Are there bees in the Twilight Zone?

[fuzzybeekeeper]

Well, for me, this is a TRUE story straight out of the Twilight Zone!

There is a VERY old house (“1 X 12 vertical boards with 1 X 3’s over the seams” old!) in the country that is being torn down to make room for a new home under the existing trees.

There is a nest of bees in one wall. They are very easy to get to. I tried to remove them a month ago but they were the most aggressive bees I have ever seen. I held up my hand in front of where I had removed one board and about 30 bees attacked my glove. I walked for a half mile and they were still following me. I drove for a mile and they were still after me!

I backed out quickly and decided to get them tested for Africanized genes. Needless to say with the holidays and holding down two jobs I never got that done.

The landowners want to become beekeepers and wanted me to hive these bees on their place. One of the owners even suited up and was helping me try to remove them. After seeing how aggressive they were, we all agreed that they needed to be destroyed. So I decided to pick a cold day and simply vacuum them up and salvage the honey, using soapy water if necessary.

I knew a cold front was blowing in yesterday so I thought it would be a perfect time to do the dirty work. Much to my surprise, about an hour before I started to take the bees out, it began to snow.

“So what?”, you say? Well, I am located in SOUTH TEXAS. So here I am……EXCUTING bees in the SNOW in SOUTH TEXAS. Talk about the Twilight Zone!!!!!

You have to understand: I don’t ever kill bees! And it NEVER snows in Texas! It was like one of those weird, unexplainable dreams my wife and I tell each other about every morning!

Needless to say….I didn’t need much soapy water. It snowed for about 3 hours and we had about an inch of snow. For informations sake….the bees DID fly in 30 degree weather. Not very many! And not very far!! And not for long!!! But they did manage to fly and attempt to sting.

Everything worked well. The bees are gone. I have a sample of bees to send to Texas A&M for testing. I didn’t get much honey because all of the OLD dirt dobber nests fell all over the comb and got everything filthy. I also didn’t think about how thick and gooey honey can get when it gets to 32 degrees. It was almost slimy.

And now I get some old wood from the house to panel an old room I have in a rustic atmosphere.

It was definitely an unusual afternoon.

Fuzzybeekeeper

[Musashi]

Wow, crazy story, but a fun read. Living in AHB territory, I'll be very interested to hear your results when you get them back about the bees.

Maybe the bees were po'd it was snowing in South Texas? lol
Take any pics?

[wayacoyote]

Fuzzy,
Great story and weird! I've lived in Texas, too. So I want to make a point for all who haven't. It DOES get cold in Texas! While on manuvers in TX, I'd write letters to friends and family who'd reply, "how can you be cold? you're in TX?" Yeah, that's not what a soldier wants to hear when he's been sleeping on the ground for 2 months in the windstorms of a TX winter.

I have another "twilight" story for you. I used to work at a "texas" exhibit at a Zoo somwhere in Ft. Worth. While there, they were just really getting some exhibits going, one of which was a "cave" area. Inside this man-made cave was an exhibit project where they wanted bees to live. (The "twilight zone" is the area in a cave where you're far back enough that it looks like twilight. A zone between the daylight relm and the underworld relm and home to lots of animals, and occassionally, honeybees.)

After some effort in trying to force these bees to live in this huge room (no not a cozy observation hive) working on large "leaves" of plastic honeycomb with a 15' flight though pitch dark to exit, the bees would abscomb. They sent the keepers to B. Weaver for a tutorial (I went along). The Weavers were very gracious in that they didn't laugh at the folly of this design. The exhibit was designed by an exhibit designer, not a beekeeper. I wish I had photos of the exhibit. I think you'd all get the humor in what I'm trying to describe. The room was large enough to walk around in. The plastic "combs" were on one wall. The entrance was on another wall.

[Musashi]

Were they handing out complete beesuits to enter this "cave"? lol Minimum height required to get stung on that "ride"?

[geoffkb]

I sympathize, the temperature here has plummeted, it was probably less than 75°!

When I do cut-outs I end up with a bunch of comb which I have to crush or scrape and put into a sieve to drain in the kitchen, which drives my wife crazy.

Has anyone discovered a good way to crush these type of combs? It's usually pretty hard and the honey very viscous. I was wondering about using a meat grinder, or maybe some sort of juicer to break down the combs, then put in the strainer.

[Gene Weitzel]

Fuzzy,

I will be very interested in the results of your tests. Be sure to post them, including the method used (DNA vs morpometric).

I have done a couple hundred removals all over South and SE Texas. I have read and heard several pretty well documented stories about bees in some of the same counties attacking by the hundreds when you get within 50 ft of the colony and chasing folks long distances. I have yet to personally come across anything even remotely that aggressive. I had one person call me to remove some bees from a steel drum who said that after they tried to "burn them out" they could not get within about 20-30 ft without them coming after them, it sounded to me like they just got them stirred up but I was tied up at the time and unable to go and see for myself. I have done several removals where 10 to 20 bees would jump on your glove when waved within a few inches of the comb, but in every case once I got the colony completely exposed they ceased to display much of this behavior (they tend to switch more to departure preparations like gorging on honey and collecting together in clumps once they realize their attempt to defend this particular home has become futile).

I have also noticed that fall removals are always significantly more aggressive particularly if the colony is large. Mostly I think its because there is less forage and more of the older, meaner bees are home. I did a fall relocation of a colony about a month after Ike came through where these folks were cutting up an uprooted tree and cut right through the top 2 feet of a colony that occupied about 6 foot of the trees hollow trunk. Needless to say the bees were not happy. When I got there a week later I was surprise to find that they had not absconded. They were really aggressive when we started screening them in, but we got them closed up and both sections of the tree loaded into the truck (one section was about 2-1/2 feet long and the other about 6', total was about 8 foot of 12" diameter hollow with 6' completely filled with comb and bees). We did this at dark so when we got back to the yard we unloaded them, went to bed and waited till daylight to remove the screen, boy they really came after us. As soon as we got the two pieces within 4 inches of each other, they immediately settled down and retreated back into the log and we were able to secure it back together. From that point on I could walk right up and peer into their entrance with little to no reaction. I will attempt to get them to move into a standard hive in the spring if they survive the winter.

Don't get me wrong, I am not denying the existence of AHB, but so far when I remove a colony that displays more unexplainable aggression than I like, I have been very successful at taming them down by splitting them up into nucs headed by gentle queens. If I am able to capture their original queen, I put her in one of the nucs as well. In almost every case they seem to blame the disruption on her and immediately supersede. If I remove a colony like this in the fall, I keep them in one colony and if they make it through the winter, split them up into nucs in the spring if they continue to show too much aggression. To date, all of the resulting colonies have been very manageable (I wear a veil, t-shirt and no gloves when working my bees). If, in the future, I do run across a colony that won't let me near them when I get within 50 ft, then I certainly will recommend to the client that they be destroyed (don't think that I would do it myself), but from the sound of it, the bees you described only became aggressive when you started tearing into their home which is not really that unexpected, especially in the fall. Just saying that in my opinion, with a little extra effort you possibly could have avoided destroying them if you were so inclined.

By the way, we got close to 3" of snow in my area and it was pretty surreal. I got some photos of my hives with a pretty good "cap" of snow on top of them. Its been 40 years since that happened in my area, so if I stay here for the duration (which is my plan at this point) I may not see it again in my lifetime.

[Gene Weitzel]

.....Has anyone discovered a good way to crush these type of combs? It's usually pretty hard and the honey very viscous. I was wondering about using a meat grinder, or maybe some sort of juicer to break down the combs, then put in the strainer.

Just put them in a large plastic bowl and then microwave them on defrost for a short time, long enough to heat them up to about 90-100 degrees or so, you don't want them too hot to touch or hot enough that the wax starts to melt. The time varies depending on how much you do at once, start out with 30 second intervals and decrease as it gets warmer, until the desired temp and softness is reached, keep track of the total time then you can do subsequent batches using that total. After heating, just chop them up with a large spoon or other utensil of your choice. This also makes the honey strain much quicker.

[Musashi]

South Texas getting significant snow has hit the newswire. Even us Tampa Florida types have heard about it and ....are....scared -....lol

[brooksbeefarm]

If you can find one? The old time lard press would work great for what your wanting to do.If your good with tools this would be a good winter project to make one or something similar.Jack

[Hobie]

South Texas getting significant snow has hit the newswire.

Us nut-case Great Lakes folks scoff at your definition of "significant."

[mudlake]

When you stop adding up the inches and start counting feet, then you can talk about snow. Oswego NY 13126 300 inches per year how many feet is that anyhow? All the best Merry Christmas Tony

[geoffkb]

If you can find one? The old time lard press would work great for what your wanting to do.If your good with tools this would be a good winter project to make one or something similar.Jack

That's a good idea Jack. I'm off to Home Depot in a minute to see whether they have the requisite materials.

I've tried warming in the microwave, thanks Gene, but it's pretty messy and time consuming since I have several buckets of comb.

Maybe I could 'wash' the remaining comb and make mead from the result. I made mead years ago and it's great so long as you ferment it carefully so it doesn't end up too sweet.

[tecumseh]

the theme tune from 'the twilight zone' is still dancin' thru my head fuzzybeekeper....

the very very early morning after the snowfall was quite spectacular here. the ground and vegetation was covered with a light blanket of snow and the sky finally cleared and the full moon came out casting this quite soft light that lit up the night. the sight and feelin' of it all was quite etherial.

the old school way of reducing the wax and honey in old comb would be to place everything a very large kettle over a water bath set on some kind of low temperature heat. heat until all the wax goes liquid and floats to the top of the container. let cool, remove the film of now hardened wax on the top of the container, then pour out the liquid contents thru a strainer.

[geoffkb]

Hi, thanks tecumseh

I'm always a little wary about heating honey. Lots of people seem to think it changes the taste, although I'm not sure how hot it has to be before it changes.

I think beeswax melts at about 140º by the time the mix gets that warm it begins to have a sickly sweet smell which I hate. I've smelled it when opening my solar wax melter, it makes me think of cooking brood which isn't good.

Maybe I should just put on a nose plug and go with it.

Geoff