REGARDING           RE>Bees in a wall of building
 
James Peterson writes:
"I recieved a "swarm call" today and when I got there the wife
said that a great number of bees disappeared into a crack in the
wall.  Sure enough there are bees going in  and out of a crack in the brick
wall.
I removed a brick and discovered it to be just the entrance to a hive
in the wall some where.
 
I have read about mounting a hive on the wall and covering the
entrance of the wall hive with bee escapes.  I don"t remember what I
should put in the hive.  If I put brood in it, they will build
another queen and there will be another hive there to accept the bees
that come out and can't get back in. Eventually the queen inside
would loose all her subjects and die.
 
Has anybody had experience with this procedure?
 
Is there a better way of getting the bees out of there?
 
Shall I walk away or be a good guy and help these people?"
 
This is a very difficult thing to accomplish successfully.  Yes, you could get
a lot of bees into the bait hive, but youi can never get rid of the original
colony this way.  I have seen such an operation, where the entire siding of
one wall of a house was removed, and the colony covered most of the wall.  I
saw that this was a job for a professional - one who was both a builder and a
beekeeper.  I tried once to do it - and found that the mess was unbelievable.
I now usually recommend to inquirers that they contact professional pest
control people.  Actually, now in these days of mites, one could perhaps
counsel just leaving it alone - the colony will eventually die anyhow, and
then the entrance can be remortared.
 
Ted Fischer