# Giant Wooden Bee Skep



## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Nice..Never had one around here like that(wine barrel).


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

peggjam said:


> Nice..Never had one around here like that(wine barrel).


I picked this one up last August and just strapped it to a piece of plywood and brought it back to the hive yard and set it on the stand. I figured I would cut it out this spring. When I peeked under the barrel before I set it on the plywood, they had a nest about the size of a large watermelon starting in the upper left edge of the barrel. If you look closely at the first shot, you can see a scorch mark on the front where the guy's gardener had tried to burn them out. All it got him was about 20 stings! I was pretty surprised at how much they had built up since last August. Most the comb we removed was very new and soft so it was probably a combination of stuff drawn during the fall flow last year and this spring. The fire ants had infested the rotted wood on top where the comb was attached, I got to cutting them out just in time. If they had loaded their comb up with much more honey, the whole top would have collapsed.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

Did you take any cell measurements? It almost looks like sc.


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

peggjam said:


> Did you take any cell measurements? It almost looks like sc.


I did not take any precise measurements other than to compare it to some sc I had on hand, but it was a pretty typical natural broodnest. Lots of sc in the center, drone on the edges and other various sizes in between. The only sting they gave us was from one that had crawled up my son's pantleg. You can see a small portion of my other son in the first shot with no protection whatsoever. He hung around and took most the photos without ever suiting up. At the very last, when the bees were pretty fed up with all the intrusion they chased him off and he went in the house.


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