my FIRST bee hive rescue

familytree

familytree

Location
Haddonfield, nj
oh good fun. Today i had to deal with my first honey bee hive in a large silver maple. We noticed the swarm at the start of yesterday while setting a line in the tree. Thank god shawn threw the ball into the cavity otherwise we would have never known what was going on. After he removed the throw ball about 20 bees where on it and he got stung a couple of times.

I started on all of the other work that needed to be done at that job site. A bunch of removals, 4 cherrys to dead wood and then I was left with nothing else to do but the silver maple (I was hoping to NOT have to start this until the following day so that i could google some bee keepers and get some more info but the crew was doing so well with the work at hand that i was forced to start the tree that day.

Shawn set me a line that got me past the hive with pretty good distance between it and me. I rigged out all of the brush and got down to wood and we ended the day.

When i got home i was able to do some research and found a descent site called the New Jersey Bee Keepers Association. I called about 15 people until i finally reached the president of the association. He agreed to meet me at the job site at 8 am to remove the bees after i lowered it to the ground.

This morning came, he never showed up and i HAD to get this job done without killing any of the honeybees. I set up an srt line anchored off to our grcs so that the crew could lower me down incase of emergency. I also dressed in long sleeves, wore gators around my boots and safety glasses, my hard hat (with vents closed) muffs down and visor down (attachment)
 

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me in tree on srt line messing around with my screen

i used my uni and pantin set up. i dont usually use a hand ascender for this set up. i usually just go hand over hand and kick my pantin leg down. i can really fly with this set up and it only takes a second to switch over to descent (only have to unhook my foot ascender)
 

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my idea was simple enough. climb to bee hive. Install window screen over cavity and staple like hell. It was much easier said then done. i had two drops of pee in my pants the whole time and my adrenaline was high.

i started to install the screen, i heard a ton of buzzing, i just kept on going. more bees came out, keep on going. Human Crane started to laugh at me, keep on going
 

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another angle of the install, sorry about the pics, they were all taken with my iphone. you can see where the anchor line is running down and into the grcs (not shown in picture)
 

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Way to go! So howdja get the hive out, and whadja do with it since the guy no showed?
 
now i was all finished with the install and im ready to come down with ZERO bee stings.

unfortunately i wasnt able to get any pictures of us rigging down the stick. i rigged down until i was about 2 feet above the swarm. There was about 200 bees flying around but none of them bothered me (i still have no idea why)

i set up the rig and rigged down a 8ft section. Human Crane lowered it down to the ground slowly and thats when i realized that i had cut right below the honey combs.
 

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now that the piece was on the ground i finished my cutting that needed to be done, descended out of the tree and then Shawn and I bundled up the rest of the holes that the bees had been filing out of.

Again, not one sting in either one of us
 

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You lucky dog! I wanna rescue a bee hive. I bet I rescue one before Stephan.


Seriously troop, that's really cool. What are you gonna do with'em? Or did that guy finally show?
 
all holes plugged (go ahead and giggle) we loaded the log onto the tractor, then loaded it into the back of my truck.

i drove the log out to a friend of the companys farm and we ditched it into the woods, i removed the screen that was over the original cavity and hopefully they will live a long and fruitful life.

Again. Not one beesting
 

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it was to be expected jman.

a lot of thanks to ED (hollenreich) and Cameron for the helpful info and insight. Cameron, ive got that number for ya so you can finally get rid of your nest.
 
Glad it went well for you FT. Ya my hive is still sitting at the back of our shop at the edge of the log pile. I was thinking of moving the hive to some woods at night while they sleep not to lose anymore bees from the hive. Nice size silver maple too in the pictures there FT.
 
I've run into a couple of yellow jackets nest both times were in sugar maple trees. Now that got dicey, I didn't know about the hive and when I was blocking out wood they came out to pay a visit. Both times I was in the bucket, and it was a slow escape.
 
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Nice work Marc. I think I would send up the new guy and tell him to have at it. However that's a bad idea since I am now the new guy.

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