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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Honey Bees in house

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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Honey Bees in house
  • Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2007 00:10:53 -0400


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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