We smoked these bees. We had a brand new totally worthless staple gun (back to Ace with me tomorrow) and tried our best to use an office stapler to attach hardware cloth to the entry way. The first time was a wash - didn't work and the bees were angry. Imagine not being disturbed in four years, when suddenly in two weeks your hive has been disrupted and now moved!
We smoked the hive like crazy to get the bees to go inside and to calm down. I've never in five years used this much smoke on a hive.
In the end we decided to jam the hardware cloth into the entrance rather than try to staple it ineffectively.
Here's the end result. It seemed pretty effective after a lot of effort. Everyone on this expedition except Julia took at least one sting. For Julia's son Noah, this was his first sting ever. He said, "I need boots!" but didn't complain about the pain.
All the hives were loaded into the truck along with the extra equipment. Then they were driven to their destinations. One came to my house. Another to Julia's. The third hive with only a few bees in it went to another Julia's house. That Julia has a very weak hive and is great need of bees.
Now the hive sits in my backyard awaiting yet another move in a couple of weeks!..
Interesting art work on those hives. Someone is creative.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Julia is an artist and she decorated these hives for her friend from whom we got them.
ReplyDeleteWow, I bet they don't like moving so much after all the time of no moving!
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