Pueblo’s Holliday Crew

Last weekend was the first scheduled removal of the 2016 season.

It was my pleasure to meet and work with Mr. and Mrs. Holliday, and to learn new tricks of the trade from Ted (a building specialist).

Occasionally, we come across homeowners who want to relocate the honey bee colony, that has entered their structure, onto their property and learn to take care of the colony themselves. The Holliday’s were an example of this. But, there love and dedication for Apis mellifera didn’t stop there. They also suited up and took part in the removal process. They were naturals when it came to handling the comb and bees, and I am certain they will become great beekeepers. After a long afternoon and a delicious snack (thanks again Mrs. Holliday), I drove home. The next day I found this message in my inbox…

Happy Sunday!!!  I truly hope this message finds you well and happy.  We are COMPLETELY exhausted today, but in fantastic spirits.  What a magnificent day, yesterday!!  Below are some photos from our AMAZING bee relocation project.

We moved into this house (built in 1909) and there was a hive of bees in the wall.  We thought it was going to be about 1’x3′. Then, when we cut the wall open and got in there, we saw it was a FLOOR TO CEILING hive, about 12″x 8′ that was 3 layers thick between our walls. WOW.

We removed the combs as carefully as we could and relocated them into the frames of our new hive.  We secured the comb in the frames with rubber bands and hung them in the box.  We vacuumed about 80 jillion bees up out of our wall and dumped them in the new hive box, then we moved everyone outside to the back yard.  As of this morning, we have a few stragglers left in the house (it’s sealed off with plastic sheeting) and on the outside where their hive entrance used to be.  Everyone seems happy in their new place and they’re getting to know it.  I put the orange bucket on top of the hive with bee food in the little compartments under the lip of the bucket until I can make a proper bee feeder.  This project certainly does require a good bit of ingenuity!

Thanks a MILLION to Lazarus Fields.
( http://fieldsofnaturalhoney.com/ ). He is our fantastic Apiary
Expert and Removal Extraordinaire.  If you ever need swarm help, he’s your dude.  Not only was he incredibly pleasant and competent, he got us a bunch of honeycomb and wax for our use in the process.  I’m going to melt the wax down and make lip balm and candles with it.  The honey…well.  I’ll be sharing it as I can, and we’ll certainly do our very best to eat the rest.  🙂

It was also a pleasure to meet Amy (the girl with the microphone).  She is a student doing a radio documentary story on bee relocation. If I ever get a link to the story, I will certainly share it!

Mrs. Holiday I found out that the story will air May 4, 2016 on KRCC 91.5 at 8:49 a.m. and 4:49 p.m. Here is the link http://krcc.org/post/whats-buzz-feral-bees#stream/0