Clubhouse Bee Colony Adventure!

Early last fall I was surveying the Clubhouse as the Garden Farms Water District began to consider demolition of the building. As I peered around the corner of the building to look at the side facing the creek, I discovered that there was a feral colony of bees underneath the siding entering and exiting through holes apparently made by woodpeckers. Since then, I claimed the colony, planned and researched, and eventually decided that I would build a horizontal "top bar" hive for these bees. I downloaded the plans for the hive from the website: biobees.com. The hive was completed on July 14th. I watched YouTube videos of bee removal, and read some bee removal stories on the internet that were helpful. The plan was to cut out the brood comb, trim it and tie it with 100% cotton cloth strips to the top bars that would be placed in the new hive. I was told by veteran beekeepers that if I was able to transplant enough brood into the new hive, even if I didn't get the queen, they would produce a new one from the brood comb.
Click on the pictures to enlarge



The first two boards removed, showing the top part of the nest




Rob placing the first frame of brood into the hive.

After the hive has been there almost two weeks, the colony seems to mostly be calling the new hive their home. There is lots of in and out traffic from the entrance, lots of new pollen being brought into the hive. However, there is still a small cluster of bees that are homing on the building, building new comb, but you don't see much traffic to and from the new comb that they have built. I will need to try to sweep those remaining bees into a bucket to transfer into the new hive, cut off the new comb they've built, then wash the area with pine odor or something that will cover the smell of the queen that remains on the building. Within the next week or so, I will move the hive to a friend's house near Atascadero for a week or so before moving it to our little farm. If I were to move them directly to my house from the Clubhouse, they might return to the Clubhouse because it's so close.

That's our bee adventure. Many thanks to my wife Karyn, who took most of the pictures without a bee suit/veil. And many thanks also to my helpers, Michelle Madgett and Richard Smith. Their presence gave me confidence to pull this off. And yes, I did get stung a few times, but it wears off quickly ... I seem to be building some resistance to the bee venom.