I recieved an unexpected call last week from a lady with honeybees in her house. It was an hour or so away so I drove up with my father in law last Sunday. Sure enough they had honey bees coming and going from a gap in the house siding between the first and second floor exterior. I put on my bee suit lit my smoker and went up a ladder to examine more closely. Luckily I had a roof to stand on while i removed some siding and sheeting with a sawzall and flat bar. I was able to expose the face of the whole nest, which was about 4 feet long and about 8 inches thick. It was typical honey brood honey layout. I saw many queen cells which I opened. Most were empty but I did find one with a well developed white nymph. I carefully rubber banded sections of comb that I cut to size with a utility knife into deep foundationless frames. I ended up with 11 of these and a few wal-mart bags of honey comb. I tried to brush piles of clumped bees into two nuc boxes with the old comb to pretty much no avail. This experience was quite exhilirating and I enjoyed helping this family remove a problem from their lives. They had little ones and the bees were getting inside their house and making outside enjoyment a little less enjoyable. Still these nice people had lived with these little critters for over 2 years and I thought it was so nice that they would rather have a beekeeper come and remove the bees humanely instead of chemically attacking them and poisoning their own house. My biggest take away was that I need to put together some sort of bee vac. I looked at some plans on here and will be putting something together soon. As a kicker, I opened up the bags of honey comb the next day after work to see about crushing and straining out some honey and as I lay out the comb on my back deck on wax paper, what do I spot but an unmated virgin queen crawling around all covered in honey. I put her in a box with foundation and one old comb and left her with some stray bees that were congregating in my trailer that I hauled them home with. Last night I pulled the trailer to one of my apiaries and when I got there I could not find her anywhere since the light was getting low. It was probably for the best anyway because I really had no where to put here and not much extra resources to pull from. If I had found her my plan was to give her a frame or two of bees and brood to see if I could get her going because I really wanted to mix her genetics into my bees since they had been going for at least 2 years untreated. I left the trailer open at the apiary. Do you think there is any chance she will try to fight her way into one of my hives or is she most likely doomed?
