Sheldon called some time ago and said he wanted a swarm.  We got him one, and he has kept in contact.  Sheldon is in the US Navy, and works as a Explosive Ordnance Disposal specialist.  He asked if he could come help with a removal.  We never turn down young help!  His family works in construction and so he knew a lot.  When he was removing the comb he went very slow.  That is his EOD training, they have to go slow so they don’t blow themselves up.  He did a great job and we thank him for his help.

The woman called and told me a story.  She said about 1 million bees formed on the side of her house.  She put out some stinky stuff and they moved.  The next morning she noticed they had moved to the other side of the house, that is when she called me.  We took a standard 5 frame nuc.  We saw the bees from the outside and it looked small.  Then we got inside and saw how big this swarm really  was.  We had to go home and get a full hive.  I used a 5 gallon bucket to scoop them.  They filled a 1/4 of the bucket! We left the hive and came back later that afternoon and most of the bees were in the box.  This was one of the largest swarms we have seen in a long time.

We got a call from a guy who had bees in his shed. When we got there, there were a lot of chairs set up in his carport. There were also mic’s and other sound equipment set up. I asked if they were having a big party. The guy told me he was a Pastor and they were going to have church in a few hours.  To me that is cool, that is the way they used to do it, church in someones home.  We took a look at the shed. It was hot in the back yard where this was, then we put on the bees suits and it got much hotter.  The bees had attached to a beach bag and a tub of laundry soap.  To make sure we had all the comb we had to unload the lower half of the shed.  We put the comb in the hive and they all seemed to go right in.  They also calmed down fairly fast.

The guy called and said he had bees in his palm tree.  He told me a swarm had gotten there about 2 weeks ago, he thought they were going to leave.  They had other ideas, they built a good sized home in that two weeks.  I asked him how high he thought they were.  He told me there were about 6 feet up.  I got there, put up my 12 foot ladder and still had another 5 feet to go.  I put a strap around the branch and pulled it down to me.  They had actually built on a tree limp next to the palm tree.  I dropped the whole thing in a bucket and then into frames. I put the nuc as close as I could.  In about an hour most of the bees had gotten into the nuc.

This condo project we have been to three times.  This one was a bit more difficult than the others.  I couldn’t get close to the place where the bees were because there was a window air conditioner in the way. But we worked around it and got them out.

This was two different removals, but the problems were the same.  Bees build between the sink and wall, they also build toward the back of the cabinet.  I have to get the comb in the front first, then work my way to the back.  Reaching in to scrape the comb out is a pain, but it gets done.

These girls were in a garden shed. The comb was new so that meant they had been there for just about 3-5 days.  I went right after work so I didn’t have a nuc, just a bucket.  I took a while to scrape the comb and collect the bees, but they followed the queen into the bucket and we went home.