Backyard beekeeping: Oh shit! RUN!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Backyard beekeeping: Oh shit! RUN!

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

Becktastic posted:

I probably have to tell my landlord though right? I wonder if I will need to pay a pet deposit...

Hope it's not per pet.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2009 20:57

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 08:18

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

I wish I weren't so afraid of bees sometimes.

I went out into my backyard Sunday to find I had hundreds of new neighbors. A bee swarm decided to hang out on my fence. I realize that these are harmless (they didn't attack, so I assume they aren't africanized little bastards), homeless little honeybees looking for a place to live and that takes a little time. So my question is, when are these little buggers going to leave? Should I go ahead and call someone to come get them?

# ¿ Jul 14, 2009 18:54

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

adept posted:

They'll probably find a home soon, hopefully in a natural home like inside a tree. The downside to this is if they try to set up shop in somebody's roof eaves who doesn't like honeybees, that person might get an exterminator.

You can call a local bee club and they will be extremely happy to come get some bees as long as they're really honeybees. It sounds like a honeybee swarm to me--they are waiting there for reports back from the scouts who are currently searching for a good home. The bees use the most experienced foraging workers as scouts because they know the area best.

I'm really only wigging out because I read that swarms stay anywhere from 15 minutes to overnight. This is day 4.

I sent an email to a beekeeper (poo poo, I think he is...) who will pick up swarms for free. He also makes it very clear that he's a "take 'em alive" kind of guy for other types of removals. I've gotten as close as I'm willing to get to them and they have not attacked. One little guy decided that he liked my back door so I was able to get a good look at him. Definitely a honeybee.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2009 16:40

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

loving. Hell.

It's been, what, two or three weeks since I spotted a swarm just hanging out on my fence. I kept thinking "wow, it sure is taking them a long time to find somewhere to go." No. No it hasn't. Those little fuzzy idiots HAVE SET UP SHOP ON MY FENCE. I see wax, the ball got bigger. Goddammit. Yes, I tried to contact beekeepers. No one replied. My pest control guy (out for a different reason) was all ready to kill them. So, now that they are "established" (in the wide loving open, in 100+ degree heat, with little to no shade) will it be harder to get them removed without killing them?

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 00:45

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

walrusman posted:

Yes. Significantly.

It's very unusual, to my understanding, for them to just chill out in the open for weeks at a time. They like secluded little cavities that they can fill up with comb, not just any old place where they can start chillin'. Very odd indeed.

Pics plz.

7/15, 4 days after I spotted them: http://www.flickr.com/photos/topenga_dent/3724043176/
7/29 this evening: http://www.flickr.com/photos/topenga_dent/3770485949/

I got the courage to get closer and saw yellowish wax. Yeah, everything I read said that they would move on, find a spot that they could control the temperature, not be out in the open, etc. I guess just under a drat leaf is enough.

If I could somehow train them to leave little jars of honey at my back door as an apology, maybe we could work something out.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 05:04

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

melodywise posted:

topenga, you can't find a beekeeper to take that swarm off your hands? It should be really super easy for them to just come in, smoke the poo poo out of them, cut that comb off, tie it to a frame and put them all in a box. They're right out in the open!

Nope. I hit another bee resource type site today and supposedly it's very hard to find beekeepers to take bees in Texas (and the rest of the southwest).

brsr.org posted:

Does anyone want my bees, isn�t there a bee shortage?

Back in the day, beekeepers use to line up to collect your bees, but since the 1980�s & 90�s, there have been two harsh changes in the industry causing many beekeepers to stop collecting stray hives, and also to abandon beekeeping all together.
First, diseases that were never around before began plaguing & killing the common honeybee, and second, bees have become much more aggressive due to the outbreak of �killer bees� which crossed over from South America and have now crossbred, creating a hybrid bee. These bees stretch from Southern California to Texas and now into Florida.
For these two reasons, it�s hard to find a beekeeper that will take your bees.

There is in addition a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder (CCD). This occurs when a beekeeper (apiarist) goes out to the apiary to find a portion of the bee boxes empty. There appear to be a combination of causes for this, but �hybrid bees� (the bees on your property) are not affected by CCD.

I called these guys this morning. I wish I had found them when the hive was a swarm.

But I don't think they'll kill them. I'm waiting on a call back to set up an inspection.

Edit: Definitely a live capture! Yay! $200. Boo.

topenga fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Jul 30, 2009

# ¿ Jul 30, 2009 17:27

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

adept posted:

Wow, $200 is more than half the cost to start bee keeping. I wish people were begging me to take colonies here in Utah. I have seen pictures of bees setting up shop in the open before but it is not common.

Oh god, don't tell me that. This guy is coming from San Antonio (I'm in Austin), so I am more than happy to pay for his gas and his time. Seriously, if these little guys didn't scare the ever loving crap out of me, I'd keep a hive. Everyone I talked to said that there hive location was very weird. And it just got back into the triple digits again. I half expect to see wax dripping any day now.

Edit:
Under performing queen: Will the bees decide that the queen is no good and, er, make a new one? Do they kick out the old one or kill her? This is all fascinating.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2009 15:47

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# ¿ May 6, 2024 08:18

topenga: Jul 1, 2003

My bees are gone! Yay!

Guy came out Saturday afternoon. He had spent the morning at another client's house where the complaint was "hollow tree has bees." That was an understatement. The buzzing could be heard from the street. He was stung about 5 times. So when he gets to my house, he said "that's it? uh, how much do you want to pay me in cash, because this is not worth the $300 the company would charge." Just like a couple of you said, he smoked them, cut the comb off (and some of the vine they had used for structural integrity I guess), put them in a box and was on his way. About 20 minutes. So these bees are going to a happy new hive somewhere and they are out of my yard. I do feel bad, however, for the 5 or 6 bees that came home to find that they had no home. Poor little guys are still hanging out where the hive was. I'm thinking I need to scrub the fence to get whatever smell off of it.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2009 17:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Hobbies, Crafts, & Houses > Backyard beekeeping: Oh shit! RUN!