Bees in trees

[Gopher]

I feel like a little Dr. Seuss this morning. Bees in trees; knees on trees; bees on threes - you get the picture.

O.K., the real question: What should I be using to rid bees from a hollow in a white oak tree? I believe they may be just honey bees, but this tree is right next to the front entrance, and the homeowner doesn't react well to bees. The whole is at around fifteen to twenty feet up.

Should I be staying away from the sprays that shoot up to twenty feet? Is the chemical compound these are made of harmful to the tree?

Something new every day in the field of arboriculture. Or is that entomology? Perhaps a bit of psycology? (I'm the one that needs the psycologist!)

Good day all.

Gopher

 

[monkeypuzzle]

Can a bee keeper get to the hive? The hive may have to be swarming before a bee keeper can touch it?????? Can he work out of a bucket? I could'nt kill honeybees, but I will muck up a wasp nest.


There is a man in Slidell, Louisiana that has a bee hive in his store, boxed up with plexi-glass with a 6" plexi-glass tube running to it from outside. Whats this got to do with your problem? Nothing neat set up.

 

[Reed]

It takes a little patience -

I had a brown bee colony inside an oak here (the nest was reported to be 80 years old) that became Africanized. The oak died and I had no choice but to mess with them.

Tried the sprays - quick knockdown but no go for the entire nest. Tried tar in the opening - they ate thru it. Called a beekeeper who tried to temp them away and got some success out of it - but a pest control operator had the best luck - he wanted to pipe-in Bromide but I let him use my Co2 tank, it worked.

Bee careful. I think bees can read your mind when you try to sneak-up on them.

 

[mquinn]

they know exactly what you're up to.

and there's the story of how i brought home a large hornet's nest from a tree on campus and coaxed the residents out....dozens of them - took a couple days.

no spray. no protective clothing. no stings.

 

[DadF]

If you can get up there at night all the critters should beee in the nest. At that time a light dusting of Sevin and covering the hole will eliminate them. If you can find any of the yellow no-pest strips those can also be hung in the opening where the critters have to crawl over them, that will also eliminate them after a few days. If you want to save them, the best way would beeee to contact our local apiarist and see if he would remove them for free(sometimes a wild hive has survived because of natural resistance to pests, therefore a better bee) or even a fee that can beee passed on to customer. If I had my druthers I would go the apiarist route(my Dad used to keep bees so I'm a little more partial to the critters than the average treeguy).
Pleeese forgive the eextra eee's, just couldn't heeelp it

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I've seen the drill and inject method beefore. Not waht we want at the Fox residance though (cool tree, we installed a plumb bob on it last week to measure any throw due to construction damage).

From what I understand the aparist needs the queen to get the rest of the hive to move, though I think I've heard of them vac'ing up workers and adapting them to a new queen.

Check with a bee keeper first, I think there is a pretty big setup down (for you ) in Ashippun.

The national honey board website http://www.nhb.org/


Below is the infor for the WDATCP bee inspector, she may be able to point you in the right direction.

Wisconsin

Ms. Anette Phibbs, State Apiary Inspector
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection
ARM Division
Plant Industry Lab and Apiary Program
4702 University Avenue, PO Box 7883
Madison WI 53707-7883

Phone: 608-266-7132 • [email protected] • Fax: 608-266-5855

 

[Striker]

Somethimg I have used around livestock barns is mixing detergent and water to spray on bees and wasps. This mixture is safer to use around livestock. Sometimes bees make nests in the hay baler. Detergent and water don't leave a toxic residue in the baler or on me. Be cautious though, it isn not an instant kill. The detergent coats the bees and suffocates them so they can fly long enough to possibly get you.

 

[treeman82]

We have good luck with aerosol bottles of wasp killer at night. Just shoot the stuff on the hive and it should work just fine. However the hives we normally come across aren't very big at all. I would say to you though to make sure that these are not honey bees as there are SEVERE fines and other such things which goes along with killing honey bees. Whether the cause of death be accidental or intentional. Just keep that in mind.

 

[Gopher]

Bee neath the answers

Thank you for the be kind to the bees reports. Excellent. I would rather call someone in, and as JPS says, the owners are the type (both in moral integrity and monatary back-up!) to do the right thing.

Mrs. Fox would like them gone, but would understand perfectly the options set before her.

Gopher

 

[Franz]

You're probably far enough north so Africinization isn't a problem, and if they are honeybees, they are extremely valuable creatures.
I had a faller colony in the knothole of a weeping willow in my back yard for years, and when their half of the tree split off in a heavy storm, they stayed in the hole.
Since bees cannot fly after dark, or below 50 degrees (grew up with them) I cut a 5' section out of the fallen tree that night, picked it with the loader, and stood it back up for them. They repaired the damage to their colony, and stayed for a few more years.
Since honeybees, especially 3 banded Italians are very docile, they are easy to work with, as long as you do it with some knowledge. Most important, for your safety, do NOT wear wool or dark colored clothing. Secondly, if you must work around the colony during daylight, use their nature to your advantage, when bees smell smoke, they automaticly fill their belly with honey and head out of the hive; This renders them almost unable to sting, and barely able to fly. That's why beekeepers smoke a hive before they work on it.
If you absolutely have to remove bees from a knothole hive, a shopvac with a box between the hive and vacuum will do the trick, as long as you install a screne in the box to keep the bees from being sucked into the vacuum. This method is best used by a beekeeper who has a hive to put the colony into, or you will probably kill the entire colony. Farel colonys are extremely fragile in their existance. When a colony is moved, it must be done properly so the queen is with it.

 

[Greg]

Never tried this, but if you snuck up there and covered the hole with some type of screen that they could not get through you could spray to kill them without them swarming out at you. Assuming that there is no back door of course.
Greg