I enjoyed reading Brian Myers' experiences as a novice beekeeper;
I'm in much the same situation, my first year with two hives (came
with the new farm I bought!) in North Georgia. Considering
yesterday's intimate experiences with the bees, I thought this
might be a good time for me to "de-lurk" as well.
 
With only two struggling hives and an empty hive body, I was
interested in perhaps catching a swarm (other hives too weak to
split). But my pest control guy knew I was looking, and mentioned
that he'd had a call for honeybees in the wall of a house...so...
 
(experienced beekeepers now begin to chuckle, recognizing the
setup for an embarrassing and painful experience...)
 
Sure, I said, why not. I realized the *right* way to do it was
with a bait hive and screen cone, but I didn't want to risk one
of my only two hives as a bait hive, so I decided to do it the
hard way and go in after them.
 
Got there and met the owners, nice folks with persistent bees.
They'd actually had someone clean the combs out before, but
they were back (possibly a new swarm?) Second story, no way to
get in from inside, bees inside the siding and sheathing board.
 
Donning the trusty bee suit and veil, I climbed the rickety
ladder, got siding off, cut the sheathing out (note: electric
saber saws tend to upset bees ;-) and pulled it off. A *huge*
colony, filling all the space between the studs and overflowing.
 
I had visions of carefully cutting each comb off, examining for
the queen, and gently rubberbanding them into frames. Hah. If
these weren't "killer bees" they were at least clearly *pissed*.
A healthy defensive instinct, I'd say.
 
The bee veil wasn't sufficiently tight. It's possible that NO
bee veil is sufficiently tight to stop 200+ kamikaze bees.
The job rapidly became: frantically cut comb, drop it into a
garbage pail suspended nearby, CAREFULLY climb down the ladder
while receiving multiple stings, then RUN, deciding whether to
be more afraid of the few bees inside the veil/suit or the many
on the outside!
 
I finally loaded as much brood/honeycomb as I could into a cooler
and grabbed my tools. I don't think I got the queen, though, the
beehive extended up above where I could get the siding off (into
the attic?) and I suspect she moved up there. I explained to the
couple I'd cut all the comb I could reach, but they may still need
an exterminator; I'd had all I could take, with about a dozen+
stings.
 
I deposited the bees + comb rather haphazardly into my waiting
brood box at home; the bees were in multiple small clusters, so
I suspect I did miss the queen; but I may try giving them a frame
of new brood from another hive and see what they can do; I probably
got a couple pounds of bees.
 
So anyway, I suppose I'm well-initiated into the joys of beekeeping
now! Examining a nice, well-organized frame hive doesn't seem nearly
so intimidating at this point. Don't think I'll be volunteering for
any more bee extraction efforts soon, though... ;-)
 
Still itching,
-Larry Morris
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