Subject: hive in house soffit 20 ft up

From: [email-masked] (Marvin)
Date: Wed, 25 Sep 1996 00:15:28 GMT

I have an opportunity to capture a hive that has taken residence 20 ft
up in a house soffit. The owner has scaffolding up to reach the hive.
There is 100 lbs of honey easily seen, who knows how much unseen.
WHAT STEPS DO I TAKE TO CAPTURE THE HIVE, any advice GREATLY
appreciated,   If it makes a difference the hive is  in Southern
Illinois, fall still 4-6 weeks off. THANKS

---

From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 25 Sep 1996 07:53:51 GMT

Marvin ([email-masked]) wrote:
: I have an opportunity to capture a hive that has taken residence 20 ft
: up in a house soffit. The owner has scaffolding up to reach the hive.
: There is 100 lbs of honey easily seen, who knows how much unseen.
: WHAT STEPS DO I TAKE TO CAPTURE THE HIVE, any advice GREATLY
: appreciated,   If it makes a difference the hive is  in Southern
: Illinois, fall still 4-6 weeks off. THANKS

First, I'm assuming you are a beekeeper and have some experience with 
bees.  I don't mean to be presumptuous here, but keeping bees and 
removing them from a structure are different matters.        

Second, I'm assuming that you mean to capture the hive and preserve its
gene-line.  If all you want is the honey, you could just use the bee
escape method and a catcher hive placed nearby.  Despite all the talk and
assumptions flying around that the feral populations are gone (decimated,
yes, gone no) and propositions that they are reservoirs for mites, these
colonies are definitely worth saving. 

(Reservoirs or not, the fact that they survived to BE reservoirs is
significant.  Perhaps they are reservoirs for less damaging strains of
mites?  I think the reservoirs are in fact the treated but not mite-free
packages and hives being moved up and down the country.  I have a lot of
respect for the commercial posters on this newsgroup (e.g., Pollinator,
A.D., Andy, etc.) but also know for a fact that not all the commercial
outfits are as conscientious or well-run.  I'm not an epidemiologist, but 
I know that hosts aren't the only thing that evolve or are selected for - 
diseases and parasites also evolve.  I've already posted my observation 
and others' near Philadelphia that the infestation rates seem to be far 
lower than 
at this time last year.  I'm not even sure I can make a determination on 
the essential oils trials I've been conducting on my bees since the 
initial infestion rates are so low...  So the point is that the feral 
strains are well worth saving if at all possible.  Back to a procedure.)

Second, you need to do this ASAP because there's a good chance you won't 
save the queen, and hence will need to re-queen from the eggs and young 
brood you salvage from the colony.

Third, you will need a bee-vac or swarm-vac for this procedure.  If you 
don't have one or don't know how to build one, let me know and I will 
post a general description of the one I use.  Make sure that whatever you 
use allows you to easily release the captured bees.  It is not sufficient 
to simply let the bees crawl out of the container into their new home.  
Sometimes this works, often they just end up dead in the cage.  

4th, you'll need a good veil and gloves.  Personally, I would strongly
recommend at least a half-suit but I suppose it all depends on your pain
tolerance and nerves.  I'd rather take 25 stings from a nasty hive on the
ground then 5 or ten in short order 25 feet up.  Your biggest danger on a
job like this is losing your nerve and falling off the scaffold or ladder. 
What this means is that if you lose control of the hive, you need to be
able to tolerate the stings you receive and calmly climb down without
falling.  Good protection will provide considerably toward this. 

Procedure:

Survey the cavity the bees are occupying in order to determine what 
boards to remove and with what tools.  Soffits are one of the most 
common places (in man-made structures) that honeybees will select, and 
one of the easiest to remove them from.  Choose a nice warm day with good 
flight, and give them a decent application of smoke.  For soffits, I like 
to use a saws-all, and large pry bars.  Use the saws-all for the 
initial cuts perpendicular to the length-axis of the boards.  If you cut the 
boards at the right angle, they can be easily re-used for the repaiã.  
Believe it or not, if you've smoked them reasonably well, this won't get 
them too riled up.  (Unless they're mean.)  After making your cuts, use 
the pry bar(s) to pry the boards off.  Essentially, what you're doiong 
at this point is exposing the cavity - and hence, the comb.  Typically, 
the comb will be hanging from the roof or ceiling boards (depending on 
construction), with the brood somewhere in the center.  

Now that you've exposed the colony, give them some more smoke if they 
need it, take a two minute break and then bring in the bee-vac.  Gently 
suck up as many of the bees as you can, moving along the bottoms of the 
comb.  Start at one point (the top reaches if there are any) and work 
down the length of the soffit.  LET the bees group up and repeat the 
procedure.  Depending upon what kind of vac-system you have, be aware 
that there are a lot of bees in a colony this size.  If you are using 
cages, be sure to avoid overfilling them.  (Otherwise they'll suffocate 
or overheat and die - very depressing.)  A cage should have at absolute 
most, no more than half it's volume filled with bees.  Once you've 
removed a considerable portion of the bees with the vac, begin with comb 
removal.

For comb removal you will need a large number of empty frames (focus on 
deep frames but keep some mediums around also.)  I'd recommend at least 
20 deep frames and 10 medium framess.  You will also need some deeps and 
mediums to store them in, and an extra to put them in (keep 
reading).  
I.e., you'll need 3 deeps and 1 medium for the 30 frames referred to 
above.  This is overkill, but you may need it.  You will also need 4 
telescoping covers.  Use two per recipient deep - one for the top and one 
for the bottom.  What you'll be doing is placing broodcomb in the frames 
and putting the frames in the recipient deeps.  The covers are used for 
the bottom and top, for ease of carrying.  

You will also need about 4 rubberbands per frame.  Use big ones that 
will not crush the frames.  These will be used to hold the combs in the 
frames.  

In addition you will need two cheap long knives, each with the last 3
inches or so bent 90 degrees to the rest of the knife.  Be careful when
you do this.  Use a vise or two vise-grips.  Knives are less malleable
than they look.  Put the bends in so that you end up with a right handed 
knife and a left-handed knife (i.e., opposite to each other).  I prefer a 
serrated knife but you can use other types.  You'll need a third (don't 
bend) for trimming and general cutting also. 

Finally, some long tongs, short tongs, sponges, a water tray, buckets for 
more water, and  clean buckets or large totes for HONEY-comb (as opposed to 
brood comb) will be necessary.  Do not skimp on these or forget them.  

Climb back up with these items and look for an outer comb.  These will 
rarely have any brood and sometimes be completely empty.  Using one of 
your curved knives and wearing gloves, reach in and cut the comb out with 
the curved edge, gently scraping along the 
boards the comb is attached to.  Use the bee vac to suck up the bees on 
this comb (both sides) before depositing it into it's container.  I 
usually have a container for juicy clean honeycomb and one for sullied 
comb or empty comb.  Proceed with the next comb, except this time insert 
the beevac nozzle into the space created by the removal of the first 
comb.  Remove as many bees friom this side as you can, then pull the 
nozzle out, gently bend the comb back (toward the space) and get the bees 
on the other side.  Now, cut this comb out also.  Proceed along until you 
get to the brood.  Follow the same procedure except this time cut the 
brood combs into rectangular strips that will more or less fit a deep or 
medium frame.  Place the combs with the brood in the frame (right side 
up) (see variation below) and use rubberbands lengthwise and vertically 
to hold the comb in.  This doesn't need to be perfect, just cut, trim 
insert and move-on.  Work quickly and don't worry about making errors or 
perfect fit.  Think in terms of how many nukes you 
can comfortably squeeze out of the amount of brood comb you can see.  
Minimally, you want a frame of young larva/eggs and a frame of capped 
brood per nuke (plus additional odds and ends and honey comb frames.  I 
prefer to sandwich the young brood frames between the old, but work with 
what you have.  In other words, when filling the empty deeps, remember 
that you'll be taking this home and dividing it up among empty nukes to 
use as queen producers.  (NOTE: Of course you could just graft the young 
larva and proceed using the methods conventional queen grafters use - but 
I am writing this for those who don't have these skills or background.)

Continue, filling your frames with brood comb and ocassionally stopping 
to vacuum up the hordes of bees which will be collectin in the recesses 
of the soffit or on the walls (and on yourself).  Frequently dip the 
knives in water to clean them.  It's a messy endeavor, so be prepared to 
be wet and sticky and well-stung by the end of the day.  I also 
recommend you bring a change of outer garments too if the drive home is a 
long one.  

When you have removed all of the comb, suck up the remaining bees.  Leave 
the cavity open and instruct the property owner to expect robbing from 
vespids, butterflies and honeybees for a few days.  They can repair the 
soffit in about a week if the weather allowed for robbing to clean the 
space up.  DO NOT SPRAY - IT ISN'T NECESSARY.  Make sure they fill the 
cavity with insulation and seal up any entry holes.

Upon returning home, immediately place brood holding frames in nukes and
empty the bees in the nukes.  This should be done immediately; a delay of
even a few hours may result in the demise of the bees.  Empty the bees
quickly; don't use smoke but instead spray them with sugar water if
possible.  Cover the frames with the bees, and close up the nukes.  If the
bees didn't make it or you have more brood than you can heavily supply
with surviving bees, consider shaking a large quantity of nurse bees off
of frames from other hives you may have.  Make sure you put some honey
containing comb in along the sides of the brood frame.  I find two brood
frames enclosed by a honeycomb frame on each side to be sufficient.  After a 
few days,
you may also want to feed them with sugar water.  Wait a week and inspect
each nuke for queen cells.  If you inspect carefully and find no cells,
combine the frames from that nuke with a nuke that does have queen
cells.  Reposition the remaining nuke between its original location and 
that of the failed nuke to catch the failed nuke's foragers.  Leave 
everything alone for another two weeks, and start watching
for foragers returning with pollen.  Still, leave everything alone for at
least another week before checking to see if they managed to raise any
laying queens. 

Final notes:

Given the lateness of the season, you may consider just putting all the
brood and bees in a single set of deeps.  I outline the nuke method above
because it's good for summer/spring removals and it increases the chances
of getting laying queens.  You can always re-unite the nukes or deeps once
you are sure you have at least one laying queen.  My observation is that
it is more important to have large numbers of bees per nuke then to have
huge numbers of brood per nuke.  So, if necessary, use the surviving
bees for only one or two of any nukes you make up this way.  Use nurse
bees from other hives for the remaining nukes.  Also, strain out and save
the honey from the honeycomb.  Given the lateness of the season, you might
want to just feed it right back to them.  They've got a lot of work to do
getting ready for winter.  If you have some drawn deeps, give them one
(even supers if that's all you have). 

Finally, next year I'll be experimenting with putting the brood combs in 
upside down in order to force them to abandon the combs once the brood 
hatch out.  Don't do this for your removal unless you have drawn deeps 
for them to occupy and move up into.  It's too late to make them draw out 
an entire new two to three deeps of comb, and lay in enough honey to 
survive the winter.  I also recommend you feed them plenty of syrup once 
they go through the honey - until they've got whatever amounts to 
sufficient stores for Illinois winters.

(Final additional note:  you might be able to plug up the entrance with an 
excluder, use a catcher hive to draw off the workers, and then use the 
method outlined above *without a vacuum* to remove the brood and 
remaining workers a few days later.  I haven't tried this and suspect 
you'd still need a vac...  The advantage though is that you'd have less 
aggressive older bees to deal with, and have a better chance of finding 
the queen and saving her too...  You'd still have to then combine the 
saved queen and beeless brood frames with nurse bees from other hives 
though)

I've been using this method (adapted from Anthony M. Buzas in 
Philadelphia) for three years now and have found it to be about 80% 
successful - meaning 4 out of 5 nukes create a new queen.  I then use 
this nuke in a deep and install as the top component of a two queen system, 
finally removing the bottom component's queen and recombining the 
components in the fall.  (Doing that yesterday, today and tomorrow.)  Next 
summer I'll supplement the method with grafting.

Good Luck,

Dave T.