Bee Rescue From An Irrigation Box. The Customers View!!

Hey everyone, what a fantastic evening this was. Normally bee rescues can take up to 5 hours or more. This one was just delightful, we got a nice big swarm and it took just over an hour. These bees had hived themselves in an irrigation controller box.

The customer lives in an affluent suburb in Pretoria South Africa. At first these bees never used to be a problem for them, but as we have learnt over the months the more established they become and the more honey, eggs and brood they have the more protective and aggressive they become!

On this evening I was so blessed to be able to have the homeowner filming as well as taking pics of us at work, normally I do this which is tough as I have bees to rescue and multitasking with fire, bees, a suit and camera is tricky. It was such a treat having someone do it whilst we worked, they got some awesome pics of us the hives and the bees too don't you think?

Below is myself stoking the bee smoker, this unit is used to pacify the bees whilst we work with them, the smoke has a calming effect on the bees rendering them essentially 'stoned'. That box on the right is used to suck the bees into before we relocate and re-hive, no better and safer way to remove bees exists, we made that unit. It is powered by a standard vacuum cleaner!

The plastic box which housed the bees is about 30cms x 50cms odd and around 40cms deep. As per bing.com this will give you a better idea of exactly what we were dealing with https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=plastic%20irrigation%20box%20housing&id=F96E850411643D73A4E9C74894806F07F959E7E3&FORM=IQFRBA

When we arrived on the property we assessed the situation and realized that this would be relatively simple IF the combs were not on the wires!! Guess what? The combs were on the wires!

Fire on, thumbs up, lets do this thing...

Many folks that are not familiar with bee-keeping are not aware that the smoke is a cool smoke and does not hurt the bees in any way, shape or form, albeit the large flame you have just seen bellowing from the smoker. Once the unit is closed the flame goes out and we pump small volumes of cool smoke into the hive just enough to calm them down!

Below we have mostly mature capped honey, see those white parts covering each compartment? That contains delicious raw mature honey, the bigger combs are drone combs and the uncapped combs contain nectar still to be dried out and matured to become honey, there are also a few empty spots in this pic yet to be filled. We put these back in the frames of their new hives to assist them settling faster into their new relocated home!

Remember those wires I mentioned earlier? Well here they are, looks rather messy at first but after administering a little smoke, finesse and care we managed to successfully remove the combs with relative ease.

This box was amidst her flowers so sadly we damaged a few. Bee removals are NEVER EASY, some a little easier than others but to date none have been a 'cake walk' and this was no different. We generally warn the homeowners of the risks and potential damage to whatever we are removing the bees from. We are just more than grateful to folks for not exterminating these extremely precious little creatures!

Aside for a trampled plant or two tonight's rescue was a great success.

Here our prospective 'camera lady' took a top shot of us working the bees. That long 'rod' in my hand is my 12V LED light I made, the bunny hugger I am, charge this once a week or less via my mini solar system which I have featured here before. This is a strip LED which I purchased from the local electrical store housed in an aluminium bar, I installed a small toggle switch to turn on and off. Lighting is very important working with bees as we do so at night only, safer and they are more passive. Free, Portable, Sustainable Solar lighting really is the way to go and it rings to true with my sustainable, clean green living mantra! It lights up good too ;)

On the right hand side and in my partners hands we have the lid of which from we needed to remove all combs and bees, on the left the static box also full of bees and combs, wires all over the place from which we safely removed combs!

After removing combs we handed them to the homeowner they were as intrigued as we always are with these amazing little animals (insects). This shot was taken from the side comb of the brood some larvae exposed, this sadly is inevitable on occasions as it is impossible to remove 100% of the swarm and brood without casualties, however do keep in mind we save the swarm 98% of it and these generally all would have otherwise been exterminated, so doing our bit for nature and the environment we certainly are.

Here we have a mature larvae just coming out his comb. Many times this happens as well. The reason is either stress related and they know their hive is 'at risk' or as above mentioned whilst removing combs it is essential to break them off or in this case wires running through all of them. Interesting to see and great for science and learning in essence all for the greater good of bees nature and humanity as a whole!

@greenplanet @gogreenbuddy this one is for you ;)

Here a nice pic of myself hard at work on the bees my partner having a peek, this pic gives you a great idea of how well my LED bar light works.

This rescue took us just over an hour and was one of our most successful in terms of swarm size, time taken to safely remove, re-hive and relocate as well as them settling in to their new cozy home, which happened almost immediately.

Normally in the first few days bees cluster outside their new home to get a feel of surrounds and orientate as well as decide whether they like their new location or not. This swarm literally started foraging in the morning as the sun arose, lovely to see and such a great feeling.

Another Swarm Saved, what a fantastic feeling.

Be sure to stay tuned for more of my epic bee-keeping adventures.

Cheer$;)