The construction company working on the rail called me. They had bees under an office trailer.. When I got there I saw they had taped off the whole trailer. I got under the thing and saw where the bees were. I put them in the nuc, waited a few minutes for most of them to get in the box. It went like clockwork
Honolulu has been working on a rail project. It won’t be done anytime soon. I got a call to remove bees from under an office trailer the construction company uses. Then the next week I got a call from them to remove a hive from a concrete form. For reference my wife is 5′ 2″ so you can see the area where the bees are is WAY up there. I used a lift to get me up to the spot, but the thing kept swaying back and forth. i don’t like heights anyway and that didn’t help. There wasn’t much comb for the amount of bees, but they all came nicely.
This guy called last week, I gave him a price and he said he would look around. He kept calling me, he got me confused with other people he called. I told him it was fate. We did the removal on July 4th, and there were no fireworks. The bees had built in a corner of the hot water tank shed. After the removal I looked inside and saw that the builders had put foam all around the edge. That guy was thinking!
About 3 years ago we were called for a job in a garage. There were shelves packed with stuff right where we had to work. We told them they had to move the shelves and stuff so we could do the removal. They didn’t and we couldn’t do a proper job. They called back not too long ago and said they really had to get the bees out. They had called some other companies, but they didn’t want the job. I told him he had to move the shelves and stuff again. I also told him that if the stuff wasn’t moved we would just go home. We got there and the stuff was moved. We cut open the ceiling and found lots of comb. The removal went smoothly and all the bees are gone. If he would have moved the stuff the first time he wouldn’t have had to pay twice.
I got a call from Richard. He said he had bees in his ceiling. When I went to do the estimate he let me know he was 80 years old. I shook his hand and thought he was going to break bones in my hand! There was some water damage in the sheetrock so we replaced it with some new stuff. While we were doing the removal we saw a 12 pack of bud sitting under a picnic bench. It looks like it had been there for years. When we got into the ceiling the comb was not built well, it was all willy nilly. It took a long time to get it all out. There was a lot of wet honey, if we had gotten there a few months later we would have had a large honey harvest. Richard has a little dog he calls PeeWee. Every time we walked past him, he went nuts. I was worried he was going to give himself a stroke
Near where we live is a Memorial for Vets. They have meeting areas and a small chapel. They have lots of weddings in the chapel area. It overlooks the ocean and is really beautiful. They called and said they had bees that had gathered under a chair in the outdoor reception area. We were removing another hive from a ceiling and couldn’t get to them. They called back and said if we could get there before 8 pm it would work. We got there and saw they had a wedding going on. I covered the chair and moved it around the corner so I was out of the way. I dropped them into a nuc and everyone was happy.
It’s funny what people think will make bees leave an area. These people had bees in the water valve box. They didn’t know they had them until they trimmed the trees/bushes in the area. They were able to get the lid up without getting stung. Then they put the stick under the lid so the bees would leave. When they didn’t they called me. It was a small swarm that was starting to make itself home in the box. Once I shook them into the nuc they all left the valve box and came home with me.
We belong to a SciFi club. One of the members called and was almost screaming, “you gotta get over here right now! I have bees in a couch on my lanai.” I got her calmed down, then packed up my stuff and went over. As we were waiting on her to come down and let us in we were talking to the guard. She told us of a woman a few floors down from our friend. The woman found bees in her dresser on the lanai, she decided to vacuum them. She got stung. Then she sprayed the outside with bug spray. The bees left and she was happy. Right after that my friend called and said a “huge” swarm of bees had just come up and gotten into her couch. We had to cut the back of the couch and remove the plywood backing to get to the bees. After we got them, we told her to wait a few days and then she could throw out the old raggedy couch.
The guy called and said he had bees in a guest house, but he would only be here for the weekend. Furthermore he was only available on Sunday, and he had to catch his plane home at 1230 that day. So we started at 8 am and were done before 11 am. That is the fastest we have ever done a job. We also removed a bird nest that was next to the bees.
Working that fast causes problems though. We both got stung several times. If we were to go slower we may not have.
If only the people weren’t going to bbq right next to the bush, they would have never know there were bees in it. They called and said a swarm had just arrived and were hanging out in the bush. They were just firing up the webber right next to the bush. When I got there, they had the webber with flames and smoke about 3 feet from the bees. The bees were going nuts. I asked him to move the grill and the bees calmed down. Even though I was less than 2 feet from the bush I still couldn’t see them. After some trimming I shook them into the nuc, waited for the rest to get in and left. All in all a great swarm catch.