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On
one sultry August afternoon, several of us
beekeepers were sitting beneath a large shady
pine tree discussing the days’ activities.
Jackie Corley, owner of Corley’s Bees
and Pollination Service, was remarking that the
bees were requiring much more of his time of
late and that his crew was unable to complete
the wild bee removal calls he was receiving. He
mentioned that he was going to intensify his
efforts in pollination and honey production. I
had been considering bee removal as an addition
to bee keeping. I had held off, not wishing to
interfere with the enterprise Jackie had
developed. When my friend announced that he was
selecting another career path, I chose “The
road less traveled by” and it has certainly
added an adventurous dimension to my apian
activities.
In the formative years of our
development, David Mills, son of the author,
devoted his energies full time to bee removal
across
Florida
. He traveled thousands of miles in the coverage
of our vast territory, tested customer
receptiveness to our services, and engineered
effective methods of transferring bees and
control of wasps. With his perseverance and
boundless determination, Florida Bee Removal has
progressed to a successful position among its
peers.
In the beginning, the company serviced
Tampa
Bay
and surrounding areas. It progressed to a
nationwide referral service, matching
bee specialists with customers who had bee,
wasp, and hornet problems. Service calls ranged
from the canyons of southern
California
, deserts of
Arizona
, and pebbled beaches of
New England
. Apian became
America
’s first private networking honeybee control
organization.
In 2005, Floridabeeremoval.com was placed
on the World-Wide Web. The website was developed
to make the public aware of services we perform
and to inspire our visitors with adventure
stories regarding interactions with honeybees
and wasps.
Our networking service developed
following the occurrence of several factors:
larger professional beekeepers have replaced
sideliners in many cases; financial
considerations have interfered with job
satisfaction; liability has surfaced; exotic
pests have appeared; and structural complexities
have evolved.
Firstly, serious keepers of bees are too
busy, as Jackie had been ,to budget time in
retrieving swarms and removing honeycombs from
structures. My old friend, Conrad Cramer, a
beekeeper since 1978, exclaimed he would no
longer come after swarms, a feeling echoed by
many beekeepers across
America
. The time required to harvest honey and manage
colonies was deemed too precious. I have
determined that beekeepers, in general, prefer
working with their own bees to cleaning honey
and wax from wall voids, treetops, and
hard-to-get-at places. Hive
manipulation and other duties must be
timely accomplished. It is counter productive to
be interrupted while preparing for honey flows
and pollination contracts. Another time-related
aspect is that keepers of smaller numbers of
colonies are often employed at other occupations
or are otherwise indisposed to situations
requiring immediate attention.
Secondly, the arrival of exotic pests,
rising cost, and frustration of colony demise
have discouraged a large number of beekeepers
from collecting feral swarms- especially if they
are difficult to retrieve.
Thirdly, many business and property
managers require increasing amounts of insurance
coverage before a sub-contractor will be allowed
on a job site. In
Florida
, a pest control license is required to apply
pesticides for control of bees and wasps.
Lastly, today’s structures have become
more difficult for bee extraction. In
Florida
, stucco on a wire base is very common. In
severe cases, walls must be taken apart to
remove combs and bees. In some sections of the
state, Spanish architecture, replete with tile
roofing and voids along the upper walls, pose a
challenge. Sometimes, parapets become infested
and roofers must be present when extraction of
bees takes place. Removing bees and honeycombs,
from structures, presents unique challenges.
Incidentally, Apian does not contract to replace
removed structures following bee extraction;
however, bee proofers and building contractors
are often subcontracted for these procedures.
In retrospect, since most bee removal
requests are of an emergency nature, insurance
requirements, demanding an outlay of capital,
the destructive nature of honeybee pests, and
due to the complexities of structures, only
those, who are professionally prepared, are
equipped toeffectively resolve bee and wasp
issues.
When wild bee swarms appear in an area,
it is evidence that other bee hives are nearby;
those maintained by beekeepers, as well as those
established in trees and other voids. As the
season progresses, wild swarms, both
reproductive and absconding, enter homes and
businesses. The swarms follow several steps:
scout bees look for a suitable habitat, the
swarm lands at the habitat, and then the colony
enters.
What is it like, in the day’s work of a
master bee removal specialist? Every new sunrise
is an awakening to the call of adventure. Each
removal project challenges the Apian talents
fashioned by over fifty years of experience.
Crossing Tampa Bay, I see a blaze of fire-like
color in the sky, overlooking the sparkling
waters that surround the Howard Frankland. The
crisp morning breeze urges me onward. I can
hardly wait to inspect my first project-
honeybees in an owl box in
St. Petersburg
.
After reaching my destination near
54th Ave.
and
38th Street
, I immediately noticed the bees mounted about
twenty feet in a pine tree. The box of bees was
placed in a laundry bag and removed from the
area. To control the returning field bees, glue
boards were nailed where the box was once
attached.
The day held five other projects:
honeybees beneath a modular home in Largo, bees
in a tree void in NE St. Petersburg, wasps three
stories high on an office building, bees and
combs in a wall void in Belleair, and an exposed
colony of bees twenty feet in a Seminole oak
tree .
I had brought along a nucleus bee hive
containing five combs. This unit was needed in
order to save the bees from beneath the modular
home. To accomplish this, skirting was removed
and the liner was cut to expose the bee colony.
The brood combs were cut to size to fit in my
frames. The combs were secured with rubber
bands. The bees were cupped and emptied into the
nucleus box. The structure was repaired
and the skirting replaced.
St.
Petersburg
has a prolific
growth of Brazilian Peppertrees. This floral
source provides lots of nectar for bees;
therefore, beekeepers locate thousands of
colonies near here in the fall. The bees in the
tree void were probably the result of a swarm
from one of the hives. I mounted the previously
captured hive near the entrance of the colony. A
wire cone was fashioned around a section of one
inch PVC. This was secured in the tree void and
sealed. The bees could only exit through the
screen cone but could not return. Therefore, the
exiting bees merged with the nucleus colony. In
about three weeks, the tree colony was
sufficiently transferred.
The nucleus was taken home and the tree
sealed.
Wasps generally build paper nests in
shrubs, eves of structures, and trees. The Koger
Corporation wanted wasps removed from the Dade
Building. An extend-a-pole with a dust anointed
tip was utilized to both treat and remove nests.
Wasps will probably return in time. However, the
treatment will control their numbers within
tolerable limits.
I headed west across Bellair road to a
wood-structured house. Bees had entered the
floor space between two levels. A couple of
boards were cut and the colony was exposed. The
combs, along with clinging bees, were placed in
a 5 gallon bucket and taken home. The void was
filled with poultry netting and excluded. The
boards were replaced.
For the grand finale, an exposed honeybee
colony was captured in Seminole. I placed my
ladder on a substantial limb beside the colony.
I then secured a five gallon bucket beneath the
combs and bees. I used a large knife to cut the
entire colony free of its attachment. The colony
slipped easily into the bucket which was covered
with a laundry bag and lowered to the ground.
Three glue boards were secured to the limb.
I met up with several assistants, at
Pass-A-Grill. By now, the western sky was taking
on a fiery glow as sunset was approaching.
Sailing vessels caught the glint of twilight
heading for the docks.
A sudden coastal rain shower appeared. As
we looked toward
St. Petersburg
, the sky filled with brilliant colors as a
double rainbow was displayed. It was time to
call it a day- one filled with endorphin
euphoria. As I crossed the Howard Frankland,
the
sun was setting like a fireball over Clearwater.
This was a time of reflecting upon those voids
of bees and the honey they had been collecting.
I
will be looking forward to another day of
discovery and challenge.
Tomorrow, who can tell what Apian
Adventures await us along with
amazing interactions with the wild bees/wasps of
Florida.
RAYMOND
MILLS-BEEKEEPER
BS LIFE
SCIENCE EDUCATION
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