Hive Relocation
For beekeepers in the northern hemisphere, summer is swarm season.
In our household, we usually get 3 to 5 distress calls every summer from someone who has “lots of bees” in a tree, on a fence, or on the side of a house. Swarms occur when bees sense a problem with the availability of food and all or part of the hive splits off and leaves. And these little critters will park anywhere as they try to find a new home.
Swarms make beekeepers very happy, and they will drop everything to retrieve one, as a swarm means free bees.
Beekeepers also will get calls about established hives that have lodged somewhere inconvenient to humans – often these are found within a wall, hidden from view until discovered during remodeling season (this is the DIY’ers version of swarm season).
The call we got recently was reporting an established hive within a crypt at the local cemetery. This is the third distress call we’ve gotten from this same crypt. Three years ago, there was a large swarm that was removed and relocated to the bee yard at our small farm. Then a second hive decided to homestead, but that hive died out before it could be moved.
Apparently bees have a soft spot for this particular crypt, because a third hive had moved in, and this one was causing problems with people who weren’t familiar with – and probably had an irrational fear of – bees.
Sadly, this hive also was in trouble, as the bees could get in and out, but they had no way of housecleaning effectively, and dead bees were starting to pile up in the crypt. This unhygienic situation most likely contributed to the loss of the second hive that had died out a year ago.
So my husband, Don, who’s been a beekeeper for years, called a couple of newbie beekeepers and invited them to experience how to remove a hive. Then my son BJ decided it might be fun to film it – not sure if he expected a catastrophe or what – and he brought along his colleague, Soo, who is originally from Suwon, South Korea, and enjoys rural experiences.
I, on the other hand, thought the bees had enough targets and stayed home. But I might as well have gone, since I got the play-by-play, with pictures. And part of a video.
In this particular case, the marble slab was taken off the front of crypt, leaving the bees exposed. I’m guessing this did not make them happy (read on) although Don believed they were content. I should probably explain here that Don goes into every swarm and rogue hive thinking “the girls” are content, and he doesn’t always notice signs to the contrary.
This possibly was the first mistake, although no-one was seriously injured.
Second mistake, Don admits that he failed to make heavy enough use of the smoker sitting near the crypt, which would have helped calm the bees and maybe prevented them from detecting the alarm pheromone, which rang the “sting all humans” bell in the hive. Instead, the protective instinct kicked in and the bees went on the defensive. When asked why the smoker wasn’t used more, Don scratched his head and replied, “I’m not sure.”
Beekeepers are honest people.
Third mistake, believing the bees would not get more agitated while this big moving target cut down the comb. Because they did. Get angrier. Again, this is where the smoker would have made sense. But beekeepers are persistent, in addition to being honest, and the job was completed with only two people stung among the five people there.
BJ, behind the video camera, was head-butted and pursued by bees and was forced to retreat to safer ground, probably because he has dark hair and a beard, and he was wearing dark clothes, giving the illusion that he was a bear. Bees don’t like bears – you’ve seen Winnie the Pooh, right?
The bees also went after the newbies. Brian had only a veil and was forced to retreat, all the time puffing on a cigarette as fast as possible to generate some smoke. “I told him that usually I don’t encourage people to smoke,” BJ said, “but these are trying times.”
Liz had a full jacket, but also had to step back when the bees pursued her.
Don, in typical Don fashion – oblivious to danger – took his gloves off to tie combs into frames to be able to move them without damaging bees and got stung when he put the gloves back on and ticked off a bee that was exploring inside. He also got stung by a bee that had gotten into his britches (his words, not mine). I wasn’t sure I wanted to know details of this, but BJ recalled that there was a duct tape failure on the backside of the suit.
The most excited person probably was Soo, despite being the only other person to be stung. She loved being out in the country, even though she got stung on the hand after taking her gloves off. She’s a woman of few words, and was very exact in describing the experience: “It hurt. Bad.”
Amazingly, it’s surprising that she wasn’t covered in stings, as she was given the largest bee suit ever known to man to wear. Why Don felt this suit would protect Soo, who is a very tiny person, is beyond me. Had I been there, I might have questioned this decision.
The stars were aligned, however, and she was probably saved by the wind, which whipped the suit around like a land sail, driving off bees. Fortunately, the ankles and wrists were tight, as was the mask, or that suit could have filled up like a buzzing balloon had the bees found an opening.
Despite being stung, she was very excited to have spotted the queen on the comb before the newbies saw the queen. Beekeepers, even new ones, can be very competitive.
So, what can we learn from this?
- Bees often lodge in places that humans consider inappropriate.
- Humans feel a strong need to remove bees lodged inappropriately.
- When humans remove bees lodged in an inappropriate place, bees consider this inappropriate.
- Bees sting humans who inappropriately invade their hive, which humans believe is inappropriate.
Do you see the pattern here?
For those non-beekeepers out there, you should learn one thing from this: make sure that before you join the summer pick-up or eviction squad, you learn how that smoker works and that any duct tape is stuck down good.
PS – the bees removed from the crypt have been relocated to our small farm, where there is plenty of food for all, and are gently and happily building comb in a human-built hive.