Sometimes the bees dont even like me: Which is hard to believe with how charming and wonderful I am. A little back history here. The location I did my removal from today had a beehive that lived on a branch for many years. Here it is fully established back in 2011. beebarf.imgur/253_barcelona_rd#0 The hive had a great temperament and never bothered anyone. I use to do presentations to school kids almost directly under it and then ask the kids to look up and point it out to them at the end of the presentation. In early 2013 it basically absconded and left. The comb was gone a few weeks later probably due to a combination of wax moths and squirrels. In the fall of 2013 I received a call they had bees again. Not in the same place. It was off near one of the buildings and about 25 feet up. The original hive was about 40 feet up. This hive was not like the original but we decided to give it a chance and leave it alone. The hive had another problem, a palm tree growing near by. Eventually one of the branches of the palm tree was large enough to brush the hive in the wind. Even nice bees dont deal well with this. So I was called out and I basically took a long pole hand saw and cut the palm tree branch. And all was good for a while at least. Well Tuesday I got a call. They had a serious problem the bees were stinging people and they really didnt want anymore issues so they asked if this time I would remove the hive. This is where things get fun. The garden area is loaded with trees, shrubs, bushes, and an abundance of plant life. Getting a boom lift in there was not going to happen. Getting a genie man lift was the only option and then the fun comes with getting the lift to the location. Man lifts are heavy and have narrow wheels that bog down in anything that is not a hard surface. The garden does not come with a hard surface on the pathways. So it was going to take some tricks and leapfrogging some wood planks to get it from the truck to the location where the hive was. This is just no fun. Did I mention it is hot and humid in SoFla. i.imgur/NBAtTqF.jpg Upon arrival I discovered that about a 1/3 of the hive was missing. I saw pieces on the ground and now understood why the bees were so mad. However no one told the bees they could calm down now and take it easy. And they were not in a listening mood. I have worn my suit twice this year (today counts as one of those two times) and that is more times than I have worn it in the past 4 years combined. This hive however my end up in my top 5 for aggressive behavior and I am still going to explain how it is probably not Africanized. And even if it is, today it is my bee yard. i.imgur/2ydAwu5.jpg When we finally got the lift and equipment in place I went up to check them out and see what my plan was going to be for the removal. I got half way up and the bees sent down a greeting party and I took about 30 stings before I had even gotten smoker on them. This is a bad sign. i.imgur/38dqxvG.jpg So I put on the half astronaut suit and the gloves and reintroduced myself. The bees responded with the usual foul language and bad behavior they exhibited earlier. However this time their efforts were thwarted by my suit that allowed me instead of getting stung to slow roast to a medium rare. Smoke made no difference and to top it all off smoking the bees in the comb and they did not move. They took in a few puffs of my smoke and basically said your brand of smoke is lousy and we will ignore it. Who knew bees had smoke standards. As you get close up you notice a lot about the hive. The amount of propolis on an exposed hive is huge. I have not seen some much propolis on a feral hive but what was really cool is they were using it as a support means for the comb in addition to the tree branch. i.imgur/tlEadEp.jpg The comb was also crossed and interweaving near the top. remember this hive is almost a year old. It is at full capacity so it has probably around 80,000 bees. None of whom like me, my smoker or believe my good intentions. My gloves after 20 -30 minutes have over 100 stingers in them and the suit many many more. As I am removing comb I notice the brood pattern is spotty and there are no eggs. Fabulous. So now I have a few clues about the bees and why they have a bad attitude. These females dont have a queen and are lacking the pheromone to help control their hormones. So I have an inbred hive of which part of just collapsed and it is likely the queen was killed in that collapse and now these inbred damaged home, females have no queen. And I am coming to pay an unannounced and obviously unwanted visit. I smell a recipe for disaster either that or all the attack pheromone the bees have decided to share with me like the perfume lady at the cosmetics area of Macys. These are the reasons the hive is probably not Africanized. i.imgur/eTrJowT.jpg So the bees were not going to look at this eviction with a positive outlook and decided that they would continue to up the nasty attitude the longer I tried to express to them my desire to present them with an excellent option for a new home. The hive has lined up their kamikaze troops said their blessings and shared their sake and taken flight. Smoke wont ruin the target lock they have on me. So we are going to have to look at giving them a new means of attrition. I reload with the bee vac. I hate using the thing especially with angry bees because the angry bees and vac means they are going to turn it up to an 11 (spinal tap reference for youngsters). i.imgur/LQnfuX0.jpg Now it becomes a battle of wills. Can they stay angry long enough and exploit any weaknesses I have before I can get most of the hive into the vac. As the numbers get lower the attitude will diminish but you can literally spend over an hour sucking up bees if it is a big enough and angry enough hive. This is a big angry hive. In my cloth covered toaster oven know as a bee suit I am showing off the latest weight loss technique know as dehydration. It is amazing I recommend it for no one. However in the battle of wills I am winning and that is what we want. I am cutting comb and lowering it in a bucket to my ground person who is cutting into frames. My ground person has a few choice colorful metaphors for the bees also. I am glad the garden is closed to today, some of the terms used my not have been consumer friendly. i.imgur/FHnxwkW.jpg As the comb is coming off I am noticing something else the bark is gone where the comb is. The tree they are on produces a lot of sap when you removed the bark. The bees were washboarding all over the entrance and other areas of the hive taking all the sap they could to help produce all the propolis they were using to hold the comb. Please note I have done plenty of bees in tree removals, these ladies had really done a job on the bark. Most bees are this assertive on bark removal. imgur/a/s21DB#26 So I have won on the battle against the hive but it was hard won. There are hundreds if not thousands of stingers in the bee jacket, pants, and gloves. The bees were taken to the yard and Monday I will check for a queen. If I find her I will replace her, if I dont I will put one in. The bees made for a memorable event I would also like to see the tree in a few months to see how healthy it is because I doubt having your bark chewed off is a healthy thing for a tree. tl;dr There was a hive in a tree. It was queenless, possibly inbreed, part of it collapse and just had a bad attitude in general and took it out on me.
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 01:44:52 +0000
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