It’s unusual to find open air hives in southwest Missouri, mainly because the winters just don’t allow them to survive. They are usually swarms that stop trying to find a home in a cavity or tree and just build right where they land. This year we have dealt with three of them, two under overhangs on building and this one in a tree.
The biggest challenge here was the height of the colony in the tree. My little giant ladder is tall but it wasn’t tall enough for this tree. But with a little redneck ingenuity we made it work, lol, now I don’t advise this setup but we did use a lot of ratchet straps to secure the ladder and it was very stable.
After we had removed the colony we raised a NUC box with comb up by a rope and secured it to capture as many field bees as possible.
#savethebees #bees #afuturewithbees
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