George Nanos said:

> ...One was later Africanized & wiped out the other hive.
> I can't get into the remaining hive to kill & replace the queen.
> Just too aggressive.

> How can I get rid of the queen, preserve as many workers/brood/honey,
> & repopulate with a package & new queen without destroying the current
> brood or poisoning the comb & honey stores?

Are you sure that you can't get some help from some type of state
official with this?  Perhaps National Guard troops with a flame thrower?

I don't think that you want the "current brood" or any of the current
workers.  They will be just as defensive as the current colony for the
entire lifespan of bees than are now brood.

Someone who wanted to save the woodenware and comb might try a pair of
large CO2 fire extinguishers backed up by two or more garden hoses
equipped with Ortho sprayer attachments filled with dish soap, since
CO2 should freeze bees on comb with a single blast, and a strong mist
of soapy water will drop any bee that flies, but I would be a fool to
suggest ANYTHING specific given the subject matter.  I don't even know
if anyone has tried CO2 fire extinguishers on AHB yet.

So I'm not suggesting anything less than the flame thrower, in the
hands of someone who knows how to use it.  Get a video camera, film
the event, and you can sell tapes to recover the cost of the equipment
and combs.

If the National Guard demurs, you might want to read up on Russian
ad-hoc weaponry, make a Molotov cocktail, and toss it at the colony,
but explosives may not be your area of expertise, and you may want
to keep all of your fingers.


                jim (Who feels that napalm should be EPA
                 approved under Section 18 for
                 "treatment" of both AHB and SHB)

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