We Rescued Bees From A Crypt!!

Hey everyone, are you the superstitious type? Clearly after last nights epic activities I certainly am not. We recently got a call from a guy who has a Crypt in the mountain, yes you head me correctly, herein used to lay two earns of ashes of the parents from the previous owners of the property.

The new landowner has had this piece of land for around 3 months now. These bees sit right next to his path up the mountain and they were a concern for him and his family on hiking days..

He gave us a call and I went around a few days ago to assess the work. This looked right up my alley. I said to the landowner we could help him out and so we did.

As per most of our bee rescue missions this one was no different in that it too had it's challenges. One been that this was located at the foot of a mountain and around 80 metres from the nearest power point. On our bee rescue's we always need electricity to power the vacuum cleaner used to suck the bees up with our specially modified bee sucker unit.

We managed to get a lead long enough to suffice for the job albeit having to ride back home again to collect another, success was imminent!

Here is a look inside the Crypt a simple stone structure with a slate roof that used to house two earns, rather freaky but I was really chilled about it all, after all nature is loving us for saving more bees destined for certain fumigation. This very landowner had just a few weeks ago exterminated another whole swarm on the property. I was furious to hear this sad news, saving these bees was my top priority!

Our first order of the night was lifting the rather large and rather heavy slate covering the crypt, I knew that the combs would be hanging from this stone and upon further inspection and after smoking the bees (to pacify them) I was right.

To give you a better idea of the setup I took these pics during the day. We naturally always work with bees at night as they are all in their nests and a little more passive at night.

A very scenic view off the hiking path up the mountain so one can see why the owner of the property would want these bees removed!

A new strategy we adopt is to leave a 'catcher box' after our rescue. Normally on feral bee rescues a day or two later other split swarms move in. This is counter intuitive for the landowner, the catcher box normally ensures that the next bees move into the box in which case we remove and relocate a week or two later. Here a pic I took of this just after we had removed all the bees and combs.

A look on the underside of the slate after we had removed all the combs and re-hived the bees!

As per all my other bee-rescue missions we gently removed all these bees as well as their combs. We then re-hived them and installed their brood combs back into their new hives. Often we need to split the swarms as in the wild the swarm size gets very big and will under no circumstances fit in one hive.

We split the combs and the bees up into two hives. This has worked 100% to date the swarm that gets the Queen carries on regardless and the one without simply 'manufacture' a new Queen!

We moved these bees to another site of ours around 30 kms away with a plethora of blue-gum trees where we have another 5 hives. Delicious honey they promise to produce for us.

Another bee rescue and successful evening we enjoyed albeit a sore back 3 stings and a very late night. Nature and bees certainly are worth the effort!

Be sure to stay tuned for more of my epic bee-keeping adventures.

Have a super cool week.
Cheer$;)