WE RESCUED A FERAL HONEY BEE SWARM FROM A VW BEETLE!

Hey everyone, WOW, just WOW. I was totally humbled and in awe of this rescue and these bees. A client called me up last week to remove bees from their VW Beetle. I totally jumped at this idea as it just sounded so incredibly interesting and it never failed to deliver.

Upon arriving at the premises we were faced with this really old and dilapidated VW Beetle. We took a closer look on the inside from the right door and saw only dead bees. This was not good. Walking around to the boot (which is at the front engine at the back) saw only a few bees, this was a bad start, BUT....

How totally, incredibly deceptive can the first glance be? This was just an incredible sight that greeted us. We opened the boot of the VW and saw what must be the prettiest most attractive new honey bee comb I have ever seen. The whitest of wax comb filled with the clearest gorgeous nectar, however, with still only a few bees???

But wait, there was more, MUCH MUCH more, this first glance was so exciting but it really did get a lot better, totally unexpected, these feral swarm removals always are.

The outer comb had a few bees on, we were rather disappointed, taking a closer look however what do you notice? Thousands of bees and that without removing a single comb yet and inspecting that glorious bee presence in-between the combs.

I took a quick walk around the car to see which other entrances and exits they may be using and to get a generally better idea as to what I was dealing with.

As fate would have it these bees had a few exits and entrances. It is generally considered easier to remove feral swarms that only have one entrance and exit, but this turned out very well. We removed them with ease these bees were very well behaved.

Here was one of their 'doors' an air-vent in the bonnet!

I lit up the smoker and got to work..

We normally start removing the side combs first and work our way in. Smoke the bees to pacify them, remove a comb, suck off bees with our bee sucker and so on.

The below pic gives you an idea as to how much honey these combs contain. They are much bigger in reality than they appear in the pic. We cut these combs in two pieces and removed them independently had we not have done it this way may have resulted in broken combs falling all over the place.

Can you spot the capped honey? We ended up getting 12 x 500 gram bottles of amazing tasting honey as well as 23 honey combs which we will sell. Total valued at around R2400 approximately $150 not bad for a nights work and we got two incredibly productive and rather large swarms from this one nest!

Normally after about 20-30 minutes the smoke wears off and bees tend to get aggressive again, we simply administer a little more smoke and carry on with passive bees!

Ultimately this night was an incredible success. We safely removed all the bees, split the swarm, installed their brood combs with honey back into their new homes. They are now settled in and thriving, such an incredible feeling.

Another swarm of bees successfully saved and relocated, nature conservation really does not get any better than this!

From pool filter boxes, to chimneys to VW Beetle Bonnets, what will be next?

Here I posted a few pics for everyone wondering what I do with all my feral rescue swarms. Bee Heaven, they just love their new homes !!

Be sure to stay tuned for more of me epic bee-keeping adventures!

Trust you have an incredible weekend.
Cheer$;)