Our fun day yesterday

Got a call for our first cut-out of the year. Luke is on Spring Break, so we suited up and got-r-did.

Luke is on the ground putting frames loaded with comb and brood in the hive body.







It was a pretty good day. I took 6 stings. Luke took 4. Brad took 4. Not bad considering we had 30,000 bees flying around.

They are now home in my backyard near the garden.

That is cool.

Messing up here. How long did that take?

Nice work B!

Took us about 3 1/2 hours. Fairly easy removal due to where it was located.

was you able to see the queen??

Did not see the queen although we think we have her in the hive body. I will give them a few days and do an inspection to see if we see her or have eggs.

Right now they are orienting well to their new home and already bringing in pollen.

Good job!

Cool not for me though

Keeping bees is something I always wanted to do. Looks like you had a good time doing it. h.h.

You should Mike. I wish I had done it years earlier. Amazing lil creatures.

That is pretty cool bean!!! After about 1 sting, and I'd had the wasp and hornet spray out though!!!! After 2 stings, I would have been swelled up like a toad. At least I did when I was a kid. Haven't been stung in 40 years!!!

Question: you take the comb out, and the bees stay with it?? Or do you collect the bees first and take out the comb??

What we did was open up the hive and then used a beevac to suck up the bees into a box. This gets the numbers way down and lets us remove the comb quicker. The beevac is a good tool to use and has very little casualties. We cut the brood comb out and put them in frames secured by rubber bands (the bees will eventually eat them away and pull the outside). Luke put the frames loaded with brood in a deep hive body. We removed the honey comb and put it in a tub to feed back to the bees after they are relocated. The bees reoriented themselves to the hive body with brood and box of bees we trapped. Last night after dark I closed them up and drove home with them in my Escape. All the bees had oriented to the hive box and none were in the open now empty cavity. last night they were all covering the brood to keep it warm and were bringing in pollen today as well as feeding on the honey comb we removed.

Very interesting process.

That is a neat process bean! Thanks for the education.

If they are bringing in pollen you have the queen good job I have done one cut out didn't like it how far you travel and charge??

We did this removal in Liberty, IN and it is about 30 minutes away. This is about as far as we want to go (give or take). This job was done for an elderly lady for nothing as she is getting ready to move. We got the bees and the experience of doing another removal. It all works out.

That's cool bean and I do love honey!