A local tree trimming service called to say there was a hive inside a log that was already cut down. They had cut through the center of the brood nest accidentally and the log had hit the ground fairly hard. There was not much comb to save but there was a good number of bees still inside the log.
We took the log with the bee colony home and as we started to do the removal the log was so hollow that we split it in thirds with just our hands. The majority of the bees were on two sections of the log and we situated those next to the hive to allow them to walk inside as we wired up the comb into the hive.
Unfortunately the hive beetles were already in the comb with larvae wiggling around so we had to trash most of it. There was enough good comb left to wire up 4 frames of brood into the box and it all went so very easy. Of course the whole time we are looking for the queen but knowing as much trauma as there girls went through, she most likely wouldn't be found.
Using the brood in the hive as magnet, we smoked the bees on the log and slowly pushed the bees towards the hive. They were mostly in the hive except there were a lot on the side of the box and that's when we saw the queen. She was in a pile of bees and moving into the hive we thought. Now hindsight is 20/20 and what we should of done was capture the queen in a cage and put her into the hive. We thought she was going in on her own (like we've seen so often befrore) so we just left her alone thinking we would just wait till they all went inside.
That is when it went from a simple "save the bees" cutout to a full on swarm. The queen must of decided she didn't like our home so next thing we know the bees start swirling into the air and became a swarm. That was a first for us! Been doing this 15 years and never seen bees abscond during the removal!
In the video below you can see how it went from a good to crazy very fast. More photos in the Gallery below.
#savethebees #bees #afuturewithbees
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