The guy called and said he had bees in a cardboard box on his patio. I didn’t believe him. Bees don’t normally build in a cardboard box because it isn’t sturdy enough for them. The top moves too much. Then he sent me a picture, and sure enough they had built in a box. I got there to remove them and found it was a bankers box, so it was pretty sturdy. They had filled the entire thing. There were a lot of bees in this box, I had to leave the nuc overnight because there were so many of them flying around. Lots of brood and good comb.

Peter helps out once in a while. He is tall and doesn’t need to stand on a ladder to get to a lot of the work. They had covered a window and put wood framing in, but they had forgotten to put caulking around the edges. Of course the bees found a way in and started building. It wasn’t until we put the cement board back and caulked around the edges that the bees started going into the box. They kept headding to the area where they were entering.

When he called and said a swarm had landed in his Christmas tree I thought he meant a fake one. This is May and they still had the lights on the tree. It was a big swarm, when I asked him if he saw them land he said he did. “It looked like a bee tornado.” He described it exactly!

We got a call from the wife of the owner. She is a beekeeper and wanted to save these bees. One of the things she asked was if I had the proper equipment to do the job. I told her we have been doing this for over 15 years we both laughed. The comb was white and very flexible. It was hard to get it out of the wall without it folding over several times. They weren’t content with just staying in the little section that was easy to get to, they had to go around the corner.

This was a messy one. The bees had built on the underside of the top of the drawers. A few weeks ago someone tried to take the top off and the comb fell inside. The bees reattached the fallen comb to the remaining comb and the floor. It was a pain to get it out without destroying the brood.

These are two different swarms. The question I have is, why do bees pick the highest spot they can find. The one with the ladder is over 12 feet tall. The other one is over 10 in the air. I don’t like heights, the 12 foot one felt like 100 feet.

We did a swarm call and the woman told us that it seemed the bees came from behind the shed. I looked and sure enough there were bees in the tires. When we started to move the tires the bees came out in force. They didn’t even respond much to smoke. I pulled the top tire off and cleaned it out, then kept going. Since they had just lost the queen to swarming they were highly aggravated. Penny usually wears shorts and a bee jacket. This time she had to put on her pants and boots. I am thankful there were still rims inside the tires, the bees didn’t get to build inside the tires, that would have been really hard.

Unless you are 60 or over you would not know what a vacuum tube is or what they are used for. The person has a storage shed with shelves of them. The bees thought that was a great place to live. All of that comb was built in a little over two weeks. I really dislike the waffle patterns that they use on the storage sheds, it makes it very hard to get the comb out. The bees fill the squares with comb.

I got the call and went to the house. When I got there I could see them doing their dance. The scouts were trying to convince the others they found a great spot. I shook them into the nuc, waited for them to calm down and left. If I would have been an hour later I would have missed them.

When we went to check the meter box the bees were very hot. I couldn’t get very near the box without bees coming out in force. When we opened it up we found the whole box filled. I was expecting the bees to be all over me, but they were too worried about what was happening to their home. We filled five frames with brood and a very little bit of comb. While we were doing the removal several people came up to us and said they had bees in their meter boxes also. I am hoping we get calls for those also.