2-29-12 Removal

This bee removal was a little different than I expected. The concrete blocks were only 4 inches thick instead of the normal 8 inches. The original building design had the window larger. After the basement walls were completed the builder must have decided to make the window smaller. They used the smaller 4 inch blocks to fill in the lower portion of the window opening leaving a large void between the outside brick and the block.

2011 Removals

WOW! This will complete all of my archived removals. I wish I could have posted each and every one, but to be honest it would just take to long to up load pictures from every removal I've done in the past.

This very old school house is part of a historic community called Shields-Ethridge Heritage Farm.
http://shieldsethridgefarminc.com/

These bees were in a wall in South Georgia.

After we remove the bees we put the sheet rock back in place and will put the first coat of spackling (mud) over the cracks.

The same job as above, where we had to open the siding on the outside as well. These bees had been there for a very long time. You can see the black stain on the brick. This is from where old colonies had died out and the old honey fermented and ran down the wall. It will take years (if ever) for this mold to stop growing on the bricks.

This colony was under a mobile home. 

Even though this is the first column that I've posted about we generally do at least one a year. This one is interesting. In the picture below you can see the old marks on the ceiling...this is from where honey comb was attached to the ceiling in the past. (so at one time there was an exposed colony attached to the ceiling)

Columns are cut open like a pie or cake. We slice a section out to get it open the remove the bees/hive. Afterward we put the column back together and fill in the cut marks.

2010 Removals

Here are the 2010 removals

The first set of pictures that I'm posting in 2010 is of the Robert Toombs house in Washington, GA. Robert Toombs was a U.S. Senator until the Civil War when he became the Secretary of State for the Confederate States and later became a brigadier general in the Army of Northern Virginia. Parts of the house were build in the 1700's with major renovations during the mid-1800's.

http://gastateparks.org/RobertToombsHouse/

We have found over the years it is much easier to remove colonies from "above" rather than below. That is why you will often see us cutting through the floor or in this case through the roof. Repairs are much easier to do when we approach a job like these.

Another roof removal

This is a removal we did in a wall. It's different because the bees started building on the side of the stud instead of going all the way to the top to start the colony.

2009 Removals

2009 Removals

This removal is a little different. Not very often you see an exposed honey bee colony. This one was doing quite well right out in the open. This building actually had 3 different colonies...which made for a long day. I went back to this same building in 2010 and removed another colony.

This colony was in a basement and had been there for a couple of years. Insulation was covering the hive and the owners never knew about it until they noticed bees flying in and out of an opening on the outside of their house.

This is a nice old house with some of the meanest bees that I can remember!

The blur in this picture is a bee wanting her 15 seconds of fame. ;) 

A very large hive! and guess what another silent truss floor system!

This last set that I'm adding for 2009 was in the Oglethorpe County Court House.

2008 Removals

Here are the 2008 removal we did.

This first removal is also in a video on YouTube.
http://youtu.be/GJSr3mbCrH0

Here's another truss floor system. 

This one is in the wall of a basement. 

This removal is in the wall of a Sunday School room (church bees). Church bees are for some reason always mean! 

This is another truss floor system (apartment) in Athens. I believe there were 5 girls living in this apartment...hmmm wonder why I remember odd things like that. 

This last one that I'm adding for 2008 is another truss floor system. The bees were using a vent for their entrance. 

2007 Removals

Here's some of the removals we did in 2007

This is what it looks like right after a swarm moves into a void.

As you can see the swarm had only been in this space for about 2 or 3 days.

This is another colony that had just moved into a house. This one had been there about a week!

It's very common for bees to move into the area right above a mantle. There's a lot more room there than people think.