Saving the Bees

Our customers really understand the concept of "Save the Bees". One of our newest customers was talking to a neighbor and discovered that he had a hive living in a tree that will be getting removed soon due to some storm damage on the tree. That customer reached out to us and asked if we would like to take a look and see what we could do. At Z's Bees we are always looking for the opportunity to do what we can to help as well as provide educational opportunities. Last night we took a family trip to investigate and see what we could do before the homeowner had to remove the tree.

As you can see from the photos the bees have an entrance to the hive which is located inside the split in the tree. The bees swarm in the spring time about now when they run out of space and get overcrowded in their existing home. When they swarm the old queen leaves and takes about half of the original hive with her. Once they leave they will cluster on trees, playground equipment, fences, and even cars while they await for the scout bees to find them a new home. Usually it is a hollowed out tree but could be something such as a hole in the soffit or siding of a house.

The process we are performing here is called a trap out. The concept is to close off the original entrance and create a single smaller entrance from the original hive that the bees will use. We then place a box with frames (just like our hives) over the new entrance to give the bees a place to work like their original home. We will let them do this for about a week, freely going between the original hive and the new box. After this we will create a funnel inside the box that will allow bees to only leave the old hive but not return. At this time the only bees in the hive will be nurse bees to tend to the brood and eggs the queen has laid. Eventually the colony will dwindle in the tree in hopes the queen will come to investigate and move in to the box with the rest of the bees. This process could take up to a month to get most of the bees in the box and out of the original hive since the eggs develop in to new bees around every 19 days. One of the challenges is making sure there are no other entrances back to the tree the bees are using before placing the one-way cone on.

Our next step is to go back in a few days and verify the bees are using the new home. We will continue to update our progress and steps as the days go by. If it goes as planned we will remove most of the bees and the homeowner will be able to take the tree down and save the bees as well as saving the tree guy from bee stings. Tomorrow's adventure is to go rescue some bees from a tree that blew down from storms.

Please keep us in mind during swarm season if you, your friends, family, or neighbors have a swarm or established hive that needs to be removed. Even if they live in a place that is not bothering anybody we can always set up our swarm bait traps to catch any swarms that come from established hives to keep them from moving to a location that they may not be desirable.

The bees huge entrance in the tree. The caramel looking stuff is propolis the bees produce to seal openings in hives. It is very sticky and is said to be the bees antibiotics as well to help will illnesses.

We place window screen on the entrance to seal it off and cut an opening that we want the bees to use. They were clustering at the top since that is where the original entrance was they were using. Once we cut the hole the bees marched down the screen to their new entrance.

Here we place a box on the tree to seal it off and will allow the box to fit over to guide them in to it.

We then place a bracket strapped to the tree to hold the box that will serve as an extension to the bees original home. Duct tape and screen are used to seal off any openings that the bees may escape through. We use the old box and old comb so that it smells like a bee hive to the bees.