O/T - SWARM!
Mid afternoon today I noticed a couple of bees on the inside of our LR window. I just closed the blinds to keep them somewhat contained hoping they would find their way out around the window.
This evening, about 20 had made there way inside. It took a bit but we got them taken care of. I had noticed a lot of buzzing in one specific area but no bees. DW kept finding more bees this evening. I sprayed all of the window and door seams to try to keep them out. Still a lot of buzzing from the one corner of our study area.
I decided to go out the front door, walk around our condo to the back covered patio to see if I could see anything.
WOW! In the corner of our covered patio near the window to our study area was a massive swarm. By my calibrated eyeballs it was about 18inches wide, about 12 inches deep. and stretched about 5 feet down the wall thinning to a point at the low end. Lots and lots of bees.
I called a free bee collection service that removes bees, puts them in hives, and incorporates them into their honey and pollination business. They are a no kill service.
Supposedly they are a 24/7 service and will come out at any time to remove swarms for free. Established colonies they may charge to remove depending on what access work has to be done.
My MIL is deathly allergic to bees so my bride has a major phobia about them though she has been stung a number of times and is not allergic.
We have been under a rain and flash flood advisory and had a bunch of rain yesterday and today. Some notable downpours. My guess is their normal home got flooded in the downpours and our covered dry patio looked pretty good as a stay dry place.
My guess is, there is not going to be much sleeping in the Rags household tonight.
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
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Comments
That sounds frustrating to
That sounds frustrating to have to deal with... And I never knew there were companies that relocate them.
We had a swarm of bees entering our house once. It was right as I was going to put the house up for sale that we discovered it and our real estate agent is allergic to bees...
Another crazy bee incident... We were up in northern Ontario rock climbing. As we hiked to find the base of the cliff, I scrambled and placed my hand on a rotted tree stump to jump across. I put my hand right on a bee and a group of "ground bees" swarmed up and chased after me. I was stunned for a minute and in shock. My husband yelled at me to run and as I started running the bees chased after me and I got multiple bee stings all over my arms.
Apparently ground bees is a thing I never knew of!
Oh boy. Bee invasions are no
Oh boy. Bee invasions are no fun.
We get them regularly. This is an old house with thick walls so there's quite a space between the shutters and the windows. Twice we've been too slow to notice and have found 3-4 ft high columns of wax beehives ... that were removed by local beekeepers. Another time it it was in the kitchen flue that they decided to make their home. That one was he'll on earth to remove and many died. Yet another time, I heard bees in the fireplace flue. Because I caught it at the very beginning, I was able to discourage them by smoking them out. There were no casualties, at least, not that I saw.
These days we're very vigilant, especially around Easter, the season when queen's decide to lead their bees to new horizons.
Ours is a swarm. My guess is that they were displaced by heavy
rain Thursday and Friday. They are just hanging out in the corner of our covered patio Oddly, there are a number of them exploring the windows next to their temporary residence. I stepped out this AM to get pics to send to the bee keeper. There were probably 100 bees enamored with the glass in the windows and patio door. They were not aggressive in the least. So far, the bug spray I applied to all of the window and door seams appears to be keeping them outside.
The 24/7 beekeeper service will be here in about an hour and a half to relocate them.
They basically turn wild swarms into honey producers and pollinators as their business. They actually reached back immediately last night when I pinged them at 11PM. They messaged me at 0400 this AM. I happened to be awake so we set up an 0800 arrival time for them to come evict our new neighbors. I tried to collect rent. The were having none of that. A few have sneaked in but seem fairly nice so far.
They also remove established colonies but ours is just transient most likely. They may be gone before the bee people, a couple, get here. Swarm removal is free. Colony removal costs depending on how much work is required to access the hive.
Must be honey bees. Yum. We
Must be honey bees. Yum.
We had a yellow jacket problem last year. Aggressive little bastards.
I am very fearful of hornets, though.
Glad you all are ok.
Unfortunately, we don't have
Unfortunately, we don't have bee removal services ... wish we had. We have to depend on local beekeepers goodwill and they're not all of the convivial variety.
A (rather feisty) friend of mine managed to harness a,swarm that was on one of her trees, singlehandedly, and that's how she started her second career. She calls herself a "beeherd" because she says she watches over them and takes care of them but doesn't "keep" them. She had just retired when this started.
They got the queen and the bees have been moved.
Interesting to watch. The bee keepers (2) suited up, moved a small ladder to our back patio, two bee buckets and two vacuums. First they scooped the bees into the buckets. After that while one cleaned out the vent that the bees were moving into the other was digging around in the buckets to find the queen. She found her.
Interstingly, when the lady beekeeper put the queen in a clip then sat it on our patio table the forager bees started collecting on the clip where they were vacuumed up. The man bee keeper cleaned out the vent, treated it with almond and tea tree oil spray to mask the hive and queen pharemones then stuffed pillow stuffing fiber into the vent openings. The bees had just gotten started. A 2square inch comb was removed from the vent. We got them early.
From start to finish, right at an hour. There are still some foragers buzzing around the vent openings and the nearby window. Several dozen but far less than the estimated 10,000 (according to the bee keepers) that were hanging on our wall.
The bees are now on their way to a hive and to join the honey business.
Apparently the foragers who were away from the swarm will take a couple of days to return to their prior hive location where they may reconstitute that hive with a newly emerged queen. If we do not see a reduction in the number of foragers in 3-4 days the keepers will return to collect more of them. Apparently, they bring the queen back and use her to lure the remaining foragers in for a quick vacuum ride.
Interesting for sure.
Well, the queen and most are gone.
However, ther are apparently some in the wall around our home office space. You can hear them humming behind the switch plates in the wall.
DW is freaked out. She has been interfacing with BIL2 who is a bee keeper. Now she has every sort of paranoia and bee phobia in full freek out mode.
It is going to be a long few days while the foragers figure themselves out and move on.
Glad to hear the beekeepers
Glad to hear the beekeepers were successful. Bees are precious!
Beekeepers' video of our bees being relocated.
https://youtube.com/shorts/_44kUoi8GZQ?si=lXwYQLMvh1p3inFq
The little white flap in the vent on the L in the video is the honey comb they had built in less than 24hrs. They were definately moving in. Fortunately we got them moved before they established the new hive location.
We have several hundred bees that are foragers that have been returning throughout the day. Apparently 30% of the colony population are foragers. The keepers told us that the foragers will likely cycle back for 3-4 days then relocate back to their previous colony location. If there is a queen cell in that location they tend to reconstitute that hive. If the numbers that return to our patio in the evening are not pretty much gone by day 5 the keepers will return to vacuum as many of the as possible and place them with their swarm at their new commercial hive.