# Bee removal from stucco wall in Palm Bay, FL



## MangoBee (Jul 13, 2014)

This was a very chilly and windy day so I worked quickly to remove and re-locate the beehive into a 5 frame nuc box. My back was to the returning foragers (I was in their flight path) and several times during the day I had a carpet of bees on my back and head (I was wearing a white button-down and Alexander veil). I would walk over to the nuc, open the lid and jump with my back turned to the nuc and "dump" the bees into the box. When I picked them up in the evening the temperatures were in the high 40's and all of the bees were in the box. They took sugar syrup yesterday and today (a quart so far) and I will continue feeding them. These were really nice, sweet bees. I wish they were all like this. 

The bees were in the wall to the left of the window. My FLIR camera showed the hive (I love the FLIR). It makes my job easier and minimizes the area I have to access to get to the bees. 








The bees were entering under the window and then making a hard left into the wall cavity. Note the guard bees by the entrance.








First look at the hive once the wall was opened. 








The hive is almost completely removed. They are clustering on one small piece of comb at the top right.








They are re-orienting to the nuc box. In this pic I have the lid cracked 1" to let the bees in. About 15-20 minutes in I closed the lid and the bees fanned at the entrance. After this pic was taken I moved the nuc a bit higher (used my toolbox and the bucket) to more accurately approximate their old entrance.


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Nice photos, thanks for sharing!


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

MangoBee said:


> The bees were in the wall to the left of the window. My FLIR camera showed the hive (I love the FLIR). It makes my job easier and minimizes the area I have to access to get to the bees.


Me too, the only way to go to prevent more damage/repairs than needed.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

Nice removal. I like the flir as well, but cannot justify the cost. I run these with my techs. Does the same thing (detect heat sourrce) but doesn't give my techs anything to watch. lol








15.00 roughly.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

Mr.Beeman said:


> Nice removal. I like the flir as well, but cannot justify the cost. I run these with my techs. Does the same thing (detect heat sourrce)


I started with one of these, and never could note a big heat source difference, but most likely user ignorance The Flir One has dramatically declined in price since it was introduced. Now the Flir i7, I couldn't justify that cost


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## MangoBee (Jul 13, 2014)

I've learned with the FLIR and temperature gauge (the cheap ones) that it doesn't show the full extent of the hive, just the main body (brood comb, mass of bees, etc). Assume the hive is larger than the image that is showing on the FLIR device. One of the greatest ways it helps is in job estimation (determining the amount to charge) and also in efficiency; determining which area to access in order to do a removal without a bunch of exploratory, time-consuming poking around.


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## Mr.Beeman (May 19, 2012)

fieldsofnaturalhoney said:


> I started with one of these, and never could note a big heat source difference, but most likely user ignorance The Flir One has dramatically declined in price since it was introduced. Now the Flir i7, I couldn't justify that cost


The heat difference usually is only two to three degrees sometimes, depending on the wall/structure composition. I've seen it increase as much as eight degrees on normal drywall. The techs *were* hard on my equipment until I told them I would deduct the cost of equipment from *their* pay. The equipment actually comes back AND it comes back clean now. lol


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