We were given contact details for a guy called Darren living in Duleek, Co Meath by Stephen from http://swarms.ie on May 29th. After contacting Darren and getting some details, we learned a swarm of honey bees had made home in his house and were coming and going from the facia board at the front door. The bees where very active and the risk of residents or visitors being stung was a huge concern. It’s always hard to tell from short videos or pictures exactly what kind of removal we are getting into but from the initial contact it seemed gaining access to the bees would be a simple matter of removing some of the facia which could be repaired easily afterward.
I went over on the 31st and began removing the facia boards. With enough removed, so I could get a good idea of exactly where they were, it was apparent that access was not going to be possible from outside the house. They were using a small gap in the facia, travelling between the joists, over the top of the wall and were actually building under the floorboards of a bedroom. Without full access to the colony, it would not have been possible to fully remove the bees and any comb they had already built. After discussing this with Darren and pinpointing the spot on the inside, it was decided we would proceed by lifting some of the floorboards and removing the colony from inside the house.
Firstly, we pulled back the carpet and underlay exposing the floorboards. I identified where the joists where by the nails and marked out where I needed to cut so the boards could be refitted afterwards. Using a skill saw I cut to the depth of the boards.
I removed the first board, which would have been the very edge of the colony and got my first look at the size and strength of it. The bees themselves didn’t pay much attention to us because they were still too busy drawing comb and you can see in the pictures how white the fresh wax is. Slowly we extracted the bees and comb sheet by sheet until we got to the far side of the colony.
Eggs and young larvae where present on some of the combs which meant that although the colony wasn’t huge, it was still a prime swarm with the original mated queen present. With the bees and comb removed we painted the timbers with Creotreat to mask any smell and prevent that spot from attracting another swarm.
Clean up was simple, compared to some other removals we have done. With the comb out and bagged, boards re-fitted with screws and any drips of honey wiped up, the underlay and carpet just rolled back into position. The only repairs needed were to the fascia boards outside.
We relocated and released the bees the following day and left them to settle in. The following week on inspection I found eggs and larvae. Going through the hive I located the queen, clipped a small piece off one of her wings and put a yellow dot on her back so I could find her again easily.
We have inspected and monitored their progress over the last two months. We have seen no sign of diseases and they are building well. Recently we have moved them on to a full hive and they have plenty of time to build up before winter. Up to date pictures below.
The colony is showing hybridisation of the brood which means we will not be creating new colonies from it next year but we will re-queen it with an AMM queen. To learn more about hybridisation go to Native Irish Honey Bee and Hybridisation
