For The Love Of Honeybees

My husband got another call this afternoon. It's a phone call that not many like to get and I'm sure one that nobody wants to make. A man had started to renovate his doublewide mobile home that had been vacant for years. Not only did he find water damage but he found honeybees. He and his repairman had tried to spray them last week but wasn't successful in getting rid of them. That's something everyone should be aware of, is when you find a hive please call a beekeeper. If they can't come out they will find a beekeeper that can or will, as in our case this evening. It takes a long time to rescue bees that are established inside of something. Hours and hours of hot tedious work. I had forgotten just how sticky and messy honey can bee! By the time we finally gave up I was covered in honey and my "Honey" had been stung several times :O( Honeybees don't give up their home easily, meaning that spraying them probably won't get rid of them and if it does the home owner will regret it because bugs will come in and ruin the honey and it will be an awful mess.


These two pictures are of the outside

This was after I cut the insulation down.

That's me, I could fit under there better than my husband so he stayed out and vacuumed the comb as I took it down. It was full of brood, pollen and a little bit of honey on the left side, but when I got to the right side it got terribly messy, honey was dripping everywhere.
Capped brood

Look how thick that comb of honey is!
We had two vac boxes that was full of bees.

I need to say that the vacuum is a special vac just for honeybees. It has an extremely low suction that sucks them into a screened in box so they can breathe.

If you ever want directions on how to make one let me know and I'll post them for you or e-mail me.

The honey and comb that can he used will all go back to the bees to help them get back up on their feet in their new home. They are extremely stressed and it will take them a while to recover.

I have to go back first thing in the morning to clean things up and see how many we left behind and try to get them. We worked til we couldn't see and we still had to get them back home and into a bee box for the night.

Until next time....

BEE RESOURCEFUL

Julie