Last week a buddy called me and had some honey bees he wanted to get rid of. He had just had a fence row dozed out on his farm and ran across a walnut tree with a colony built in the base of the trunk. Since I was out of town at the time I told him the earliest I could get them was Saturday. He could wait till then but needed them removed as soon as possible since it was holding up the dozer operator and logger. Well of course it was raining Saturday, but I went ahead and cut the part of the log out with the colony and waited till after church on Sunday to split the log. I was amazed at how calm the bees were all through the removal process. Maybe it was because it was cool (50 degrees) and damp. I started by almost cutting all the way through on each side with my chainsaw then laying the log down and using wedges on each side, splitting the log. There was a good amount of bees and comb. I removed the brood comb and used rubber bands to hold it in new frames. I ended up with three good frames of brood and good bunch of bees. I took a full frame of honey out of another colony to give them some stores to eat on. Check out the slide show below.
Thanks
Dave
One last comment, I'm wearing the jacket with veil, I recruited my son-in-law Ryan to help, he is in the full suit.
Walnut log bee removal
