[Market-farming] Honey Bees in house

road's end farm organic101 at linkny.com
Wed Sep 5 00:10:53 EDT 2007


On Sep 4, 2007, at 11:32 PM, Leigh Hauter wrote:

> Of course I haven't seen your house and maybe there are extenuating
> circumstances (such as decaying siding or eave boards which could
> give a hive dozens of entrances to inside the walls of your houses)
> but I've removed close to a dozen hives from various houses and never
> have had to go to such effort and expense as you seem to have to
> remove your hive and its honey.
>
> I suggest the next time you have a hive move in and begin to use that
> rotted out hole in your eave board as an entrance you pick up a
> beginners beekeeping book and do a little reading to begin to
> understand what exactly is involved in removing a beehive from your
> house.
>
> Understanding some of the sociology of a honeybee hive  (your e-mail
> states a couple of things about honey bees and what to expect form
> them that are simply not true) is probably something that every
> vegetable grower should know anyway since we all are so dependent on
> pollinators for most of our vegetables and livelihood.

I spoke to at least four different beekeepers in this area, including 
one with a lifetime of experience, who had for much of that time been 
the person in this area who did remove hives from houses. Unfortunately 
he was too ill to do so by the time that I needed him. If I had been 
able to get him to take care of it, I'm sure the job would have been 
massively faster and simpler. The reason it was so much trouble was 
because I tried to work with the wrong person, which I did because he 
was the only one who was willing to try to take the bees at all; the 
other beekeepers said it was too much trouble for them to try to get an 
established swarm out of a house and they didn't have the time, and I 
didn't want to just have a contractor poison them. I am quite well 
aware that we depend on pollinators for a significant percentage of our 
food.

However, all the beekeepers who I spoke to agreed that the house wall 
(wall in my case) needed to be opened up, the hive physically removed, 
and the house sealed up so they couldn't get back in. As these were 
people who in most cases had been successful with bees for many years, 
I assumed they would know more than a "beginners beekeeping book".

Yes, this is an old house with a lot of cracks and holes in it (now all 
well caulked; which was about to be done anyway). The original hive was 
occupying a significant portion of the wall of one upstairs bedroom and 
of the area under the floorboards adjacent to that wall, and had 
expanded to do this in less than one year's time (I saw them move in). 
The room in question became uninhabitable. I also saw a swarm come off 
that hive when the hive had been disturbed (though I don't know whether 
the disturbance was the cause or whether they were ready to swarm 
anyway), settle on another wall of the house, then split into two; some 
of the swarm moved off to parts unknown (I hope on this farm) and the 
rest moved into the wall they had settled on, on the far side of the 
house from the original swarm's location. I wish it had been impossible 
for them to do this; but they did do it.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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