A week or so after I set up the hive I heard from my friend. I have no experience capturing a bee colony and was prepared mentally to do it, until I heard of the location and how much work was involved. When she told me where it was and that she and her husband hired a company to capture the bees, I figured that I could finagle my way into getting the bees from the company she hired and then putting them in my own hive. I was right.
On Wednesday, June 22nd at 10:30 a.m. I heard from my friend indicating that the Bee Friendly service was at her house and that the manager, Randy, said I could have the bees if I wanted to come get them. By 11:00 I was suited up, the hive in the back of the Honda, and I was ready to go get me some bees.
When I arrived at my friend's beautiful home in Saratoga the bees had all been captured and put in a 5 gallon bucket. I thought this was a little strange and I asked Randy if they were all in there. He opened the lid a bit and I could hear a very loud buzz and feel my heart rate speed up. Yeah, please shut the lid Randy, I get it. The bees are there. I put the bucket in the trunk and said I would be right back with his bucket after I went home and put the bees in the hive. Luckily, my home is only 10 minutes from where the bees were, so the ride was short (also because I exceeded the speeding limit by about 30 MPH on the way home).
I got home, suited up in my sexy beekeeper outfit and got mentally prepared for what I was about to do. I put the hive on the cinder blocks in the back of the house. The bees had a spot to be. Too bad someone wasn't video taping me doing this...it really was hilarious. I took out three frames from the hive for the bees to go in. Then I opened the lid of the bucket a bit and heard the buzz. I then shut the bucket really fast. I very loudly counted to three and then dumped the bees in the hive. It was strange to me that not too many started flying around - I mean only a couple hundred started flying - when I probably dumped about 40,000 into the hive. But the ball of bees was moving on the top, and I figured they just needed some time to move and get whatever solution was on them
off. I believed it was a sugar solution, but I did not know. My first attempt with bees and not one sting. The bees didn't even buzz me or become angry. Bonus!
Since I had to get back to work I decided to leave the three frames out and come back at night and check on the bees and put the frames back in. I went back to bring the bucket and went back to work just praying that the Queen had survived and that the colony would like it's new locale.
Upon returning home I suited up again in my sexy beekeeper outfit - I call it sexy only because there is no way this thing could be considered sexy - and got some sugar water prepared to spray on the bees to calm them. Yes, my dumb head didn't even buy a smoker yet and I have bees. What's a few stings? I opened the hive hoping to God I could see the Queen. Instead, what I found was 3-4 inches of dead bees at the bottom of my hive. MOST of the bees did not survive. Why you ask? To follow is a link of my review for Bee Friendly Bee Service, or whatever it is called. I truly believe this colony would have been destroyed in it's entirety if I did not show up to take them. Bees should NEVER be placed in a 5 gallon bucket without air. There are special boxes made for bees so that they have air supply in transit. Please read my review of this service and consider your options when looking to remove a hive.
Needless to say, I had to carefully remove the deceased and make room for the living. The remaining survivors were disoriented and obviously shocked about what happened. I spent an hour with a trowel cleaning the dead bees and putting them in a bucket. I nearly cried at the waste it was. Not that I was emotionally attached to them as pets, but it was a very big disappointment to me that this supposed "Bee Friendly" service was obviously not bee friendly. They falsely advertise that they will be kind to the colony and relocate them. Yeah, they would have relocated them straight into the trash can.
Every giant bee I saw I hoped was the queen. But since the bees appear to be a hybrid of some sort, I think they were just bigger bees - or the drones. Drones are the male bees and are larger in size. There are usually only a couple hundred in a colony. The rest of the hive is female. I cleaned up what I could without too much disruption to the hive and then closed it up and tried to think of a plan....
My dad and friend Erin both said "time for chocolate covered bees!" Ick!
I'll keep you posted on the Re-Queen situation!
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