This very old school house is part of a historic community called Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm.
http://shieldsethridgefarminc.com/
http://shieldsethridgefarminc.com/
These bees were in a wall in South Georgia.
After we remove the bees we put the sheet rock back in place and will put the first coat of spackling (mud) over the cracks.
The same job as above, where we had to open the siding on the outside as well. These bees had been there for a very long time. You can see the black stain on the brick. This is from where old colonies had died out and the old honey fermented and ran down the wall. It will take years (if ever) for this mold to stop growing on the bricks.
This colony was under a mobile home.
Even though this is the first column that I've posted about we generally do at least one a year. This one is interesting. In the picture below you can see the old marks on the ceiling...this is from where honey comb was attached to the ceiling in the past. (so at one time there was an exposed colony attached to the ceiling)
Columns are cut open like a pie or cake. We slice a section out to get it open the remove the bees/hive. Afterward we put the column back together and fill in the cut marks.
Awesome pics! You've come a long way from the small swarm in the first posts! It looks like there were way more bees in the columns than the ones where you and your dad got 15 gallons of honey from! My husband and I have done removals but small compared to your scale! I don't think we could ever get into it the way you have/do.
ReplyDeleteAwesome job!
Do you keep all the bees that you remove?
We have a rescue hive living in a tree hollow, that we (along with a friend) cut from a city tree that was scheduled to come down. Have you ever heard of drumming bees out of a log before? It's a very old technique that we are going to try later this spring, we're hoping it will *bee* a success. ;)
Hey Julie...we have come a long way! We do several things with the bee we remove. Some (about 10%) don't make it. Of the ones that do we keep, some we sell, and some we give away.
ReplyDeleteI have heard of drumming bees out of a log and to *bee* honest I'm not sure how effective it is. Of the logs I've dealt with in the past I always just cut or split the log open then vacuumed the bees out or pulled the comb out (after it was opened) and put it along with the bees/queen into swarm frames.
I wish you luck with your bee tree!