Well, I seem to have a problem. About six weeks ago my wife gave my chickens to some lady she met in Wallyworld. The chickens were all seven or eight years old, so they would only lay once in a while. Their days in the sun were over.
The idea was that we would start over with a new batch of chicks when the weather cooled off.
Well yesterday I went to clean up the coop, and I discovered that a swarm of feral bees had set up house in my coop. They were not there on Friday, but they were there on Monday. I sat and watched them off and on all yesterday afternoon. They seemed pretty sedate to me. But when my son came home, they didn't like him at all.
I sure don't want to spray my coop with pesticide. Any suggestions?
Hey Rufus.
There are a few things you can do. Like previously mentioned, you can wait a few days and see if they are "swarming." This is the term used to describe a large group of bees that have left the mother colony. They will travel with a virgin Queen looking for a new home. Usually, that's a spring event, however, so there may be some concern there. It has been extremely unusual for this years natural cycles, though, too. My friend's lemon tree is having it's second harvest of the year. She's about five months early from her normal harvest. The bees may be confused also.
Alternately, there is always the choice to call in an expert. Craig's List is an option, but I would be concerned with an amateur answering the ad instead of a professional. True experts are generally quite expensive from what I understand, so that may not be an option. You can always contact the
Beekeepers Association of Central Arizona. If nothing else, they can give you some excellent advise on how to take care of them correctly.
Depending on how adventuresome you are, it really isn't that big of a deal to deal with them yourselves. It also isn't very expensive, either. In fact, beekeeping in general can be an excellent hobby. I have a cousin in Colorado who is putting hives in peoples' yards for them, similar to our backyard chickens. It was an absolute blast when I was visiting and was able to help. The only special equipment he has is a beekeeper's net hood. Otherwise, it's some well fitting clothes that are pretty much sealed. Long pants, long sleeve shirt, leather gloves and the hood. Use a spray bottle with sugar syrup to thoroughly spray the bees down. The spray will calm them because it provides immediate food, but it also causes their wings to stick and prevents them from flying. Use a 1:1 ratio of sugar to water. You can quickly brush them all up and put them in a gallon bucket or the likes and dispose of them. Or if you are so inclined (although I urge against it), simply kill them. For about $35, you can also get a bee smoker. In addition to the sugar spray, the smoker will confuse the bees because it masks the pheromones that they use to communicate. That makes them more docile and easier to work with. There is a reason that every serious beekeeper has used smoke to calm the bees for harvesting for the last several thousand years.
Check out
this article for an excellent reference to installing a package of bees. It gives you a lot of the basic bee handling skills that you'd need. Please, please remember that honey bees are quickly disappearing all across the world and we are only beginning to find out why. It's been a mystery for the last fifteen years or so, but they are finally linking it to some pesticides used largely for crops including corn. In addition to use destroying all of their natural habitats, it's a bad recipe for the bees. That's a big part of the reason that people like my cousin and his friend are trying to put hives in people's backyards. It is jeopardizing our food supply, and raw honey has so many health benefits that it would be devastating to lose them.
If you are in Phoenix somewhere and still need help come Monday, let me know. I'd be willing to come out and give you a hand. Not quite sure where to get the nets in town, but I'm sure we can come up with something. I can contact my cousin, too, to see if he has any more recommendations. The big thing to removing the hive is to make sure you identify and capture the Queen. Otherwise, all of the worker bees will return to her and you'll have to start over. You can find excellent tips to finding the Queen in
this article. It's written for a controlled hive situation, but you should get the general idea of what you're looking for.
Good luck and let us know how it turns out. Bees are really quite fascinating and docile creatures. I hope to have a few hives one day when I have the land. In the meantime, my property just isn't big enough.
