Bees were living in this stack of theater
equipment and i was called to remove them. The homeowner was a local drama teacher, & the bees moved into these pieces of stage being stored in the backyard. You can see how the bees were using this rotted out hole as the entrance to their hive. After the stage pieces were disassembled, I got
my first good look at the hive & it was just beautiful! I could tell from all the fresh comb
that it didn't look like the bees had been here for too long, but they were very active and while
there were a lot of bees flying around they were not aggressive or trying to sting me at all. So I set the new hive as close to the stage as possible i thought this would help the bees get into it a
bit more easily when they were ready for it. But first I would have to get most of the comb and the colony and hopefully the queen into the new hive, So i got to work. I knew that i would have to
take extra care when working with this hive ...the beeswax comb was so soft and delicate and I wanted to keep it all as intact as possible So i did my best to hold the comb together
as I removed the first piece of the hive. This piece had some food on it so I took a
moment to look for the queen but I didn't see her. So I put this piece into a frame
of the new hive using rubber bands then i used my smoker to clear the bees from
the next piece of comb that I needed to remove. This piece was just as soft and flimsy as the
first and it broke in half as i grabbed it but the bees could still use everything inside of
it and they would even put it back together. So I carefully put it into the new hive and I
did the same thing with the rest of this piece. Then I paused for a moment to just observe the
bees and to see if i could find the queen. And that's when I saw one of my all-time favorite bee
behaviors to see inside the hive! The bee in the center of all the other bees who is shaking her abdomen and walking around in circles is actually doing that to communicate with the other bees. She is telling them the distance and direction to fly to find the best flowers for food. And if you think it looks like she is dancing... you're thinking like a beekeeper because beekeepers lovingly call this
the Waggle Dance and it looked like these dancing bees were doing their job quite well because
this hive had a wonderful supply of pollen. And while I could have sat there and just watched
the bees all day it was time to get back to work. This next piece of comb was full of worker brood
pollen and nectar and it was an essential part of the hive so i secured it into a frame and I put
it into the new hive as carefully as possible. Then I used my smoker to gently clear
the bees from the next piece of comb and you can see how the bees scurried
away from the smoke just as you or I would. This next piece of comb was full of even more brood and food than the last and it had everything a healthy colony needed this time of year. All of the cells with cappings on them were full of worker brood and that was almost a sure sign of a queen. You can see the capped brood on the bottom and some bright beautiful pollen being stored above it which is what the nurse bees use to feed the baby bees. So I slowly slid this piece of comb into a frame alongside the others and I put everything into the new hive. And since I had not yet seen the queen, I gave the bee some more smoke to clear them off the comb so i could look for her and that's when all of a sudden I saw the queen! At first she was mostly covered up by the other bees, but then she crawled her way through and I could see her entire body and that's when I saw it! This queen bee was laying an egg! That's not a stinger you see that's an actual bee egg and she was in the middle of laying it. So i grabbed my queen clip and I wanted to get her in the new hive right away. A queen clip is a beekeeping tool designed to hold a queen inside but let the other bees who are smaller easily enter and exit to care for her. But as soon as i put this queen in the clip... she crawled right out. So after she crawled into my hand I put her in the clip again but this time I
would make sure it would hold her safely inside. So I grabbed a rubber band and i started to
wrap it around the opening of the clip where she was escaping from. I usually do this in
most of my removals just for added insurance, which is something i learned from having one too many queens escape from the clip and swarm on me. And I took some extra time and care to
make sure this queen wasn't going anywhere. So after i felt like she was safe, I put her in
the new hive and I got back to work. I still had a few more pieces of comb and a lot of bees to get into the new hive and while I was working I was thinking of the queen and hoping she wouldn't find her way out of the clip. The bees can chew through the rubber bands, but only if they really want to and it could take them days. And even if the queen did escape from the clip again, the bees would
let me know because all of the bees already in the hive would start to follow the queen out. A honeybee colony is a super organism which means that it's a collective of individual bees acting
in synergy for the benefit of the community. And that's what they were doing as we all
work together to get them into the new hive as I speed this up you can see the bees on the stage behind me all move together in a group into the new hive. That's because their queen was in there & they were starting to recognize this as their new home so they were working together to make sure that every bee in the colony knew where to go and how to get there. But some of
the bees still needed a bit of encouragement. So I used my smoker to create a cloud of smoke
around the bees to herd them into the new hive then I just waited and watched as the bees
followed their colony into their new home there were plenty of bees at the entrance of the
hive who were fanning pheromones from a special gland in their abdomen to let the other bees
know where to go and there were a lot of bees following them into the new hive over time as more and more bees started to pick up on those scents more and more bees would go into the new hive to be with their queen. But there was a group of bees that didn't seem to want to go in, so
i scooped them up with my hands. To me, scooping bees seems like the most gentle way to get bees
from one place to another. So after I scooped as many bees as I could, I scraped the last bit of
comb off the stage and put it into the new hive I also used this time to check on the queen I
could see that she was still inside of the clip in that a bunch of other bees had joined her
to take care of her which was a great sign. Since it looked like she wasn't going anywhere, I
put her into the new hive. Then i just waited and watched for more bees to move into the new hive.
And after I waited long enough, most of the colony was in the new hive with their queen. So I began
to put the cover on the hive but the entrance would still remain completely open so that any
straggler bees could get in and so the bees would have plenty of ventilation for the drive home. And
since the hive is just pieces stacked on top of one another and they're not attached in any way,
I used a bungee cord to hold everything together. Once I felt like everything was secure, it
was time for me and the bees to go home. So I picked up the hive, I loaded it into my truck,
and it was another great day of saving the bees!
