bee's buzzing every where........

[kf_tree]

i went to remove this tree yesterday and as i was pulling the vine off i found a big bee nest.......the customer had an exterminator come and spray it but i stopped bu today and poked at it with a pole saw and they still swarmed out. how many times should it be sprayed? how long til they leave?

the tree

 

[kf_tree]

the nest.....the problem is who knows how far the nest goes down the trunk.

 

[darkstar]

?

just tape up bro,,, ware goggles toboggen gloves tape it all together and get err done or smokeumm out

 

[texasnative]

I exterminated a beehive in a hollow water oak, eviction would have been impracticle. I had another climber working for me at the time, and he was pruning deadwood from the tree. He stuck his boot into the cavity which was the entrance and exit of the hive. Apparently, he squashed a worker bee which then released its attack pheromone (bees have a very elaborate communication system), telling the others in the colony to defend the hive. He got stung about 35 times. I got him a shot of benedril and then some to take home. He took the next day off, but was back again the following day.

On my climber's day off, a liscensed exterminator was called to the scene, but he wasn't about to climb a tree, so I put on the bee suit and took the spray gun into the tree. As long as the bees are not threatened, they are very docile. I watched them for about 15 minutes...coming and going...they never paid me any attention. Not one tried to sting me, even while they were being sprayed. I don't think they knew what hit them. Africanized honey bees may be a different story.

The exterminator told me that the complete bee suit cost 45 dollars. That was 3 years ago. They might be a little more now.

 

[texasnative]

BTW, I'm a little more observant of insect activity in a tree now.

 

[darkstar]

seriously tape up ...simple

 

[kf_tree]

seriously tape up ...simple

are you for real? how soon can you get up to new york? how much would you charge me if i flew you up .........not to do the tree ,but just belt in next to the nest while i get the top out. then you can slice the pancakes through the nest.

 

[Mike Barcaskey]

kf, you say they're in the tree. are they honey bees?
it would be worth it to salvage the comb. maybe find an apiarist to come out and save the queen and swarm. they'd probably do it at no cost, just for the swarm and some of the honey

 

[kf_tree]

the bee's are kind of on the small side, i'm not sure what kind of bee. my concern is the tree is all "fibery" there where a big lead (half the tree) was removed some time back. i've seen it in big silver maples before where that crap material will go down for a few feet. so if the chemicals don't make it all the way through ..........i'm not fond of the idea of being belted in chunking wood down and cutting into some pissed off bee's.

the job is for a contractor.........so of course he wants it done yesterday.

 

[darkstar]

ill come up no problem i one had to remove a tree for a bank with a gigantic hornets nest in it ... i taped myself all up goggles and ski mast taped the pants to the boost it really sucked because of the heat but i got the tree down it was weird cause the hornets didnt really try to sting me but my ground help suffered a bit they all had cans of spray so when the nest hit the ground they attacked ... one got stung and his lips swoll up huge really fuuny looking i had to get hom some benydril ... they wrere some really big hornets but nothing could have stung me no way i was fully taped up ... hey i get low budget flights ... pm me if u still have a problem

 

[Koa Man]

Liquid sevin will kill bees real easy. Wasp spray is ineffective and so is stuff like carburator spray and paint thinner. If you spray with liquid sevin, soak the nest real good and come back the next day. I have killed several bee nests this way. I need to get me a bee suit.

 

[Wilson_tree]

My brother and I once poured a small amount of gas into a big nest. We climbed up when it was cool early in the morning and all the bees were pretty slow. We gave the gas time to soak in and vaporize and then tossed in a match. The bees were blown out of the tree like a cannon. We had to wait for them to fly away from the destroyed nest, but they all left for good so we could work. Good luck.

 

[Proj Eng]

Cut it down at night. Chunk it out during the day after bees leave.

Seriously, is there a fogging spray you could use, the kind that is not so much liquid but more of a gas?

 

[kf_tree]

well.......i went back today to meet with the exterminator. we found another entry hole about 4 feet down the trunk. so just from what we could see there is at least a 4 foot nest in the tree, no telling how far up it goes. my boss poked at the nest with a pole saw and out they came. the exterminator was kind of dumb founded by the size of the nest. my boss told the customer to get a bee guy there to see what they could do. i'd rather walk on the job than get stung up.

 

[blue]

we had a tree last year with a bee's nest in.was kinda lucky in that the boss went to check with the owner a few days before we went to take the tree down that everything was still ok when he noticed a large amount of bee's around the tree.the owner said he knew about the nest but never told us(******).we had the nest sprayed and killed but it was still un-nerving climbing about in it.when it came to ringing the trunk down the nest was fookin huge about 4' in length down the trunk.if the boss hadn't gone there to check i doubt if i'd be here today

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

hey Blue there are some real nice people about aren't there

 

[Proj Eng]

How about foaming it up with expandable foam until you don't see anymore bees?

 

[DDM]

How about 2 Gallons of Gas and a Match?

 

[darkstar]

no ill come up bees for me no prob .... 850 $total

 

[priest]

Two summers ago I was working on a dead Silver Maple removal. Before we started the job I noticed a "ball" of bees around a hole in the trunk. My only experience with bee nests was with Africanized honey bees in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, and it was not an experience I wished to repeat.

I called a local beekeeper/expert. He was close to 90 years old--he wanted to move the bees, but was too old to climb the ladder to the entrance of the hive (about 20 feet up). He loaned me a bee suit and head gear. He told me that the bees probably would not attack unless I was aggressive towards them. He said that they amazingly are not agitated by a running chainsaw, but that the pounding of an ax would piss them off quickly.

I talked to the client, and we decided to leave the lower 25 feet of the trunk as a bee sanctuary, removing the limbs above that were hazardous to the houses. And the beekeeper was right: I ran the chainsaw right down to within two feet of the highest entrance to the hive, with bees flying all around me, and never got stung. They looked at me, but never became agitated at the vibration of the 044 cutting through their tree. I never even wore the bee gear he loaned me.

This is my only experience with bees, they and their log remain. I have no experience with actually dropping the nest on the ground, surely that would piss them off. But if you can work around them and you are not excessively allergic, it can be done. Honey bees are an important part of our environment, and we should help protect them when possible.