Killing Honey Bees...

[Merle Nelson]

Closing one hole - often there is at least one more way in and out.

Removing bees - a hollow cone over the main entrance that comes out 6 or 8 inches. They know the location of their hole so precisely that they can't find way back in. At that point they will go into new hive with new queen provided be beekeeper. After a few days remove cone from old hive opening and they will go in and rob out all the honey and transfer to new home.

 

[Levi]

That's a nice trick Merle. I have done a handful of hive removals... Show up before the sun, cover hole with a fine screen or cloth using staple gun, no suit necessary if you get there early enough. Honey bees are very docile if you don't swat at them. Use a crane if possible and keep the piece with the hive vertical. Apparently it messes up the hive if you tip it. They hit pretty hard if you piss em off though. Learned that last summer while dumping a bee log with a coworker, we got quite a laugh out of that one. Damn they were pissed!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

If the hive goes horizontal, they can often drown in the honey I was told. So best to keep them upright. the one I did we had to lay on it's side. We went slow about it and they survived just fine. It was towards winters end, so there was probably less honey in the hive was our guess.

 

[Levi]

That makes sense, the bees stayed around the one we flipped for maybe a week or so then someone tried to upright the log and they were gone within days. The property it was on had a bunch of bee boxes so hopefully they went there or moved their queen to a new cottonwood.