This was the first removal/relocation of the 2023 bee season. It was a colony that the homeowner had me look into the previous year, but since it was so late in the season he decided to “wait them out” and see if they survived the Winter of 2022. Then make a decision to remove the live colony or just remove the old comb and dead bees if they didn’t. As luck would have it, they did not survive the Winter, but before we could schedule to remove the old comb some scout bees had already checked out the cavity and brought there sisters and mother (a swarm) into the old colonies “turf”. The homeowner got a really cool video of the new honey bee swarm moving in.
I am pretty sure this is the tallest removal we have ever done. It was at least twenty eight feet from the ground. We had to bring in three stacks of scaffolding, and I was anxious every time I was on the top level. We did manage to remove the colony, insulate, repair, and paint it in one day though. What a long fun day it was to kick off the Spring removal/relocation season. This colony is currently thriving at Jesus’ Outyard. However, they did go through an emergency queen cell building process, which means there highness was injured or killed during the removal process. Her daughter made it back from her mating flights and is currently an egg laying machine.
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