Have I got a technique for you...and I can honestly (and accurately) say it has worked 100% of the time (I used it once and it worked) :)

Last fall we were in Florida for their state bee conference.  We stayed with Keith Councel, the host of their giant BBQ that year, vice president of the state association, and bee removal black belt.  Keith and Melissa invited us to stay with them for a few days after the conference (during the conference their house was a essentially a hostel), and do some removals with Keith.

We got to see a lot, but there was one house...an abandoned foreclosure with a lot of black mold on the walls inside (you really didn't want to be in there)...the bees were in the wall, under the tiled shower pedistel.  The house had been sold and rented, and was supposed to be occupied in a couple of weeks (good luck).

In any case, Keith removed some of the siding where the entrance was, and there was a floor joist (that was partially cut away to accommodate some kind of infrastructure) right in the way....it was also aparant that the siding had been removed sometime in the past...probably more bees.  Keith decided it was going to be too hard to remove them, and was going to tell the insurance company it would be a "seal and gas" operation.  Melissa (Keith's girlfriend/partner) would have none of it....so a little BeeGo (I think about 10cc...a diabetes type syringe full) and a very small hole drilled in the tile grout....get the Go _behind_ the bees.

We watched for the queen as the bees exited, but did not see her....then we saw the bees starting to cluster in a tree about 20' up..we had no ladder so that was the end of it.

Earlier that day (in the morning), we had done a presentation for some kids at a local school...it was what Keith had on the schedule for the day, so we went along.  We brought with us a fairly weak observation hive (2 frames deep...good for the bees, bad for the viewing)...there was a queen, some brood, and some workers...but not much.

Since the hive was weak, and since Keith won't bill out a removal if he hasn't caged the queen and removed the bees, there was some value in getting them....I suggested we put the observation hive near the (now gassed with BeeGo) entrance.  We brought over the observation hive and opened the entrance...bees were interested and flying in and out...we moved it right next to the old entrance, against the wall, and left it there.

I expected the bees to take over the observation hive...but Keith went back early morning (like 5am), and found the original colony in the observation hive, and the driven out colony clustered between the observation hive and the wall.  Keith is a genius finding the queen (he just peers at the cluster and pulls her out), so he caged the queen, shook the cluster into a box, and brought them all home.

There are some photos of this (they don't document things very well)...the first removal in this gallery:
https://picasaweb.google.com/Dean.Ramona/Florida

I'd love to experiment with this, and things like it (a 2 frames together with a queen in a mesh cage...without a queen)....I have retrieved swarms hoisting frames of brood into the tree (2 frames together works better...the bees cluster between the comb).

In any case, driving them out should be relatively easy....you don't need too much Bee Go.....but you have to have a way to "catch" them....perhaps a long tube on the entrance leading to a cage or large mesh bag?

deknow

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