Today has been one of the weirder days in beekeeping. If you'll remember last Friday I got a call from my husband to come check out a bee colony that had moved into the wall of the apartment complex he works at. I get there and sure enough, there are bees flying in and out. Some carrying pollen. The resident says that they have been there for two weeks or so. Talking to the maintenance guy, who thankfully has participated in cutouts before and knows not only what to expect, but also why spraying them is a horrible idea, he seems to think that if the resident has noticed them for a week then they've been there for at least 3 weeks. So, we formulate a plan of attack. My husband and I will build a bee vac and bring bee suits and hive tools. We both spend the weekend watching videos of other people doing cutouts.
I took a few hours off work today and head over to the apartments. My husband had already started working on the bee vac. We built it using a Styrofoam cooler, an old package box, some extra tubing, and a shop vac. There is a hold in the cooler that can be used to regulate the suction. If it looks like they are getting overheated, we can put an icepack in with them to cool them down.
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| I didn't think this was too bad for a short-notice attempt |
So, bee vac is built and we pack all the stuff into the Jeep and head over to the building with the bees...
And nothing.
No bees. No bees flying. No dead bees. No sign of them being sprayed. We even took a piece of the siding off and knocked on the underboard. Nothing. It was like they absconded over the weekend. Damn. I really wanted that colony.
