Is it too late to do a cutout or trapout?

[shadow-cw]

Hi all,
I'm located in NW Alabama. A local guy has discovered a hive in the wall of his house and wants them gone. Is it really too late to do a cutout or trapout? The goldenrod and cotton have not really started blooming yet but it's close. If its too late I may try anyways and feed like crazy. The home owner is going to have them sprayed, he wants them gone one way or another.
Thanks all,
Caleb

[Splatt]

What have you got to lose? It sounds like the bees are going to get killed, otherwise. Sure, they might not make it after you cut them out. But suppose they do?

The homeowner may find that spraying isn't the wisest thing for him to do. He's going to have to open the wall up and clean it out, anyway, or all that honey is just going to attract pests. Or it's all going to melt and run over time, and cause problems.

I have no experience with cutouts. Just my $0.02.

[BeeManiac]

Not too late especially if you give them a new queen in the trapout. Make sure she is caged for the first couple of weeks. You can feed down there late or all winter =) I did some last year in sept.

[Mr.Beeman]

You can always combine the bees with a weaker hive.
Never too late.

[hemichuck]

You can also do a split off of a strong hive and then add your cutout bees to the queenless part of your split.That way you get another hive thats already built out and ready for the queen.

[alexanderbuzzsaw]

Save the bees and feed thats better then killing them!

[shadow-cw]

Well, Tuesday I went to the house and did the cutout. Everything went pretty smooth. But I could not find the queen. There was very little comb in the wall. Only enough to cut and rubber band into 4 deep frames. I only took deep boxes with me as I thought it was a big hive in the wall. Very little comb but there were tons of bees. As I closed up the wall I tried my best to smoke them out but I know there are alot of bees still in the wall.
So my plan now is to go back with a deep nuc box. Change everything out and build a trapout to get the rest of the bees, and hopefully the queen out. Fingers crossed. I guess two things that are good news is there's a cotton field in close proximity in full bloom and the golden rod is just starting to bloom.
Wish me luck!

[shadow-cw]

Well guys all I can say is I tried my best. I went back to check my trapout today. All the bees have abandoned the nuc. A little cool snap in my area didn't help anything. Oh well at least I tried and the bees didn't get sprayed.