On Sept 5th, Dominic and I went to a home in Tampa that had a hive in the wall of a storage building. We don’t have any pictures of the actual comb but it was about 6 feet long from top to bottom. Not too much honey as it was toward the end of the summer dearth and they had used up most of the stored honey.
This hive had been there for many years but the flight path had become an issue for the homeowners neighbor. Therefore, they wanted to bees removed but not exterminated. That is where Dominic and me came to the rescue. It was hard and hot work but we enjoyed it and made a little money to help with expenses to support this hive and a little for our time. Dominic worked very hard as well. At the outset, I had told him that if he worked hard, then I would pay him $20. I gladly gave him his $20. Learning that WORK is what produces an income is a knowledge and skill that I am hoping to pass on to my children and this was a great opportunity for that. I was very proud of him.
Here is an email that I recieved from the homeowner’s daughter in law. How could I not be the proudest daddy.
I am most honored to be the first to leave a comment. Dominic is a joy and very bright boy. He stole my heart at first sight! Today I had the pleasure of spending time w/ and taking pictures of Dominic and his Dad kindly removing a hive from my MIL’s house. My MIL had been telling me that a neighbor had been complaining about the bees flight pattern over her backyard. I’m an organic gardener and have my yard and have my backyard certified as a Natural Wildlife Habitat (pond for all kinds of frogs, turtles, snakes, dragonflies & Butterfly Garden where I occasionally raise caterpillars and release as butterflies) Hummingbirds and birds of all kinds - well, they are all welcome here. Sorry this has gotten so long! But anyway, I was very against removing the bees. But my MIL was getting frustrated by the complaints. So I googled Bee Removal Hillsborough County (or Tampa?) and found Moore Honey Bees. After looking over his site, I got a really positive feeling so I called. Matt was kind enough to come the same day and do the removal the next. The time and energy he and Dominic spent today was so generous for the small amount he charged. I would Highly recommend using them if you are a Nature Lover like me and are concerned about the drastic decline of bees, don’t like chemicals, can’t stand to see harm done to any creature. Please use his service if you need it, without any concern. Or buy his honey! I forgot to mention–he even let us taste it - it was yummy!!! Gotta End with Dominic - we took a quick ride around in our golf cart and he pointed out and taught me the name of a bird that I had never seen before. He said is was called a snakebird. I’m going to have pull out my FL Native Bird Book and look that one up. It was really cool. So, thank you Dominic ~ You are awesome!
After taking a look at entrance of this hive and listening to the ceiling, I was able to determine that the hive was definitely between the two floors. After considering the options, we decided that going in from the 2nd floor would be the easiest to repair and would be the least disruption during the cutout.
The hive yielded about 7 frames of brood comb and a bucket full of smaller or unusable pieces of comb and honey. The honey was fed to the bees in my bee yard and the wax will be melted down to make candles.
Everything went fairly smoothly except that the homeowner who took most of the pictures and the video did get stung several times but he kept coming back for more.
A Zephyrhills homeowner contacted me to remove a hive in the wall of a outdoor building. We scheduled the cutout to occur on Saturday afternoon. When I got there and saw the number of bees bearding at the entrance, I immediately knew this was a good sized hive. The inside wall was particle board and would need to be removed.
This was the 1st chance to try out my new bee vac modeled after the Robo Bushkill Vac. This vac sucks the bees right into the hive. It is a simple but very effective design. It worked well except for some clogging at times. I think we just needed to go slower.
My friend, Tom came by to help me and we quickly realized quickly that using the sawsall was going to be much easier than prying off the sheet of plywood as we originally wanted to keep it intact but that became impossible. Some of the comb fell as we brought the wall down. I believe there were 5 columns of comb. We were able to save about 7 frames worth of brood. We used 1 box for brood and one box of frames to hold all the bees as we vacuumed them.
The cutout took about 3 1/2 hours for the two of us. Tom ran the vacuum most of the time and I removed the wax and killed many small hive beetles. It was hard and hot work. After about 45 minutes of working in the building, I started to feel the symptoms of heat exhaustion. I had to take short breaks at times to recover. I had already been outside almost all day and the heat in the building just pushed me over the edge. The building was well over 100 degrees. The homeowner was thoughtful and brought out a fan for us. We drank 2 gallons of Gatorade by the end.
We don’t know if we got the queen since we never saw her. I will find out this weekend if we did. If not, then I have a queen to give them or I will let them make their own.
You will be able to see in the pictures that the beard on the outside was quite a large number of bees. It took quite a while just to suck these up.
When I started with just a few hives, my memory served as my record book. Even with just a few hives though, I would get confused at times. “Hmmm, I can’t remember which one of those two hives…..”.
As I have increased the number of hives, I needed some way to record information about the hives since there was no way I could remember the details of each hive from the last visit much less what happened a month ago or more.
After doing some searching online, I did not find anything that was exactly what I was looking for but did find a lot of different options that gave me some ideas. I was mostly looking for a single sheet that would be able to record 10 or more dates and the associated information needed about each hive.
Excel to the rescue. I built an Excel spreadsheet with dates down the left and the information needed across the top and a notes section for each date. Each page is dedicated to one hive.
One of the most important purposes of this record is to keep track of actions and history related to my IPM strategy. Information such as mite counts, drone traps and small hive beetle strength can become very important later in the year to help make decisions on pest management.
After using this for several months now, I am fairly pleased with it. I keep the record sheets in a binder and take it to the yards with me. After each inspection I fill out the sheet. Since most of the entry is just a check mark or a number, it does not take very long. Being able to review the history of a hive has been most valuable.
I have linked the file here as a Excel spreadsheet and a PDF.
I tend to monitor craigslist.org on occasion for people needing bee removals. On Sat, I saw a posting for a swarm not far from my house and I had time to go get them if they were still there. After getting in touch with the home owner, we were on our way.
We got there and found a nice size swarm just a few feet off of the ground hanging on the side of a tree. I was able to get a double nuc just under them and with a few swipes of the brush, about 75% went into the box. Within about 5 minutes, virtually all the bees were in the box.
The homeowners were happy to have them removed and I was happy to get the swarm. They are now settled into their new home in Land O Lakes.
Here is a picture after virtually all of the bees went into the box. It really is amazing to see them all file in to follow the queen. I used a few drops lemongrass oil to help entice them to stay.
After waiting almost 3 weeks for Dominic’s to arrive, he announced that this day was “One of the best days of my life” and “It is like Christmas morning”. I don’t know that I have seen him more excited and happy than he was while he donned the beesuit for the 1st time.
Dominic always wants to go with me to work the bees but the “getup” he was using was not adequite and he would not get too close. He really wanted to be able to be at my side. I decided that I did not want to miss the opportunity that was right in front of me for my eldest son to work at something with me. At times, it is trying but the benefits will be long lasting.
