Amateur bee rescue

Found an ad on Craigslist for free bees. Guy said they were hanging from his roof and if someone didn't get them he was going to shop-vac them so we suited up and gave it a shot!

What we found was not what we expected.


July 30 Comb exposed after pulling boards down by bakopermie, on Flickr

Bee Hive Removal and Relocation

Enjoy.

Brian

I can't really tell how you proceeded from the pictures, nice as they are. did you put any of the comb you removed into their new hive?


my first cut out was also pretty amateur-ish. took three of us 12 hours. sort of a blind leading the blind situation. worked out well, though, and cutouts now provide a little bit of income for me. though free bees are nice, now that you've done it once I would suggest charging for the service next time.

Tel,

This took us about 6 hours over 2 days to remove and another couple hours getting them into the new hive. We ended up pulling each piece of comb out by hand the 1st day. I had to work the next day so Pam and Wendy went by themselves to finish the job, which involved scooping out cups of bees apparently.

Yes we put some comb in the new hive.

I wasn't able to spot the queen but was told they saw her when they were transferring to hive. They are still hanging around so I assume thats true.

This is now our 2nd hive! Feel like real beekeepers now.