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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:10:34 -0400
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> What about Fischers Bee Quick that Brushy Mountain sells?  

All the better dealers carry it, planet-wide.
(I'm "Fischer".)

> It's supposed to smell nice.

Everyone agrees it does.  It certainly can help to
remove established hives and swarms from residential 
structures without fear of making the building uninhabitable.

A number of people who do bee removals use Bee-Quick to 
speed up the process, and they likely all have their own
techniques, but I suggest that one soak a cloth with some
Bee-Quick, put it over the end of a shop-vac hose securing
it with a stout rubber band, and attach the hose to the 
exhaust port of the shop vac.  One can then blow fumes
into the cavity, one hopes into a hole cut at the far
end of the hive away from the entrance.

But I must stress that Bee-Quick is NOT going to make
someone with no experience in bee removals into an
expert, nor is it ever going to drive 100% of the bees out.
Yes, one can drive the queen out every so often, but
the expectation should be to:

a) Drive out the BULK of the bees before removing combs

b) Allowing the bulk of the bees to be vacuumed up with 
   a bee-vac off a wall surface without worries about 
   sucking up honey (as sucking up bees AND honey is 
   what kills bees)

c) Making the manual removal of combs much quicker 
   and easier, due to the much lower number of bees
   on the combs.  (Also makes the cutting and fitting
   of the combs to frames, and the sliding of rubber
   bands over the combs that much easier, again due
   to a smaller number of bees on the combs.)

But bees are very reluctant to leave open brood, and
there is no such thing as a proper bee removal where
the comb is not removed, which implies that the remover
will cut and replace a portion of wall or ceiling.
I've only done about half a dozen of these removals 
per year, so I am not an expert at all.

But the fantasy of driving the bees out of a cavity,
vacuuming them up off an exterior wall, and driving 
off with a check in your pocket is a fantasy.  
You are going to get a mix of plaster dust and honey
in your hair when you do this sort of work, and
if you don't have both plaster dust and honey in
your hair, you aren't done.  :)

As far as assuring that another swarm will not return 
to the same house, there are some houses that can be
filled with the pumped-in insulating foam, and even
then will still have cavities in which bees could set
up shop.  Some structures are hopeless, and need a
annual contract with a beekeeper.

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