A fellow down on River Road (south of the James River in Richmond, Virginia) had some fellows removing trees from his yard earlier this week. On Tuesday, they cut a piece out of a big poplar and (when it hit the ground) bees erupted from it (according to the tree cutters, ten thousand of the things!) They quickly gave that tree a lot of room.
The home owner got on the net and found my name, giving me a call. Unfortunately, it was a work week (and this seemed a low probability of success, quite frankly – queen is likely a goner and who knows what happened to the honey stores) and my weekend is booked with a beekeeping course that I am teaching. So, I called one of the fellows from my back-up list (David Stover, also a member of ERBA) and he was able to go out with some friends and get that log cut and moved on.
If we’re lucky, that’s one more colony saved!
Reader Comments
They had pickup trucks, trailers, rachet straps, chainsaws, and duct tape in the old days?
I thought they had mules, hay wagons, bow saws, and burlap…
Im so confused… Wait i have bees i should be confused…
Glad to see the season pulling together!
I’ve done several extractions from houses, and my last one in 2011 was this tree from a park in south Richmond. I makes me nervous to see that log on its side. Queen may or may not be dead, but they won’t be able to mate and raise a new one at this time of year. Regardless, the big issue in these trees is beetles. The comb gets crushed, one on top of another. When that happens, the bees can’t get in between the comb and root out the beetles. The beetles can get in really tight spaces, then the beetle larva do their dirty work. As soon as possible, they need to go in that tree and make sure there is bee space between the comb, and if any fell to the bottom, to pull it out of the tree and set it in a place the bees can rob. Otherwise, hive beetles will destroy the honey and eventually drive the bees out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XYCd0QGcfI is what it can look like.