Booking for next year

[BjornBee]

I've got three extraction jobs lined up for next spring, if the bees make it.

Which is a good question....does anyone ever go in and clean out an old colony site in the spring after the bees died for whatever reason?

[barry42001]

I have never did that--I simple advise the owners of the home or tree that unless they close off the entrance(s), there is a high likelyhood that another colony will take up residence in the very near future. I leave the carpentry to the home owners, aside from exposing the colony. I always assume that the expired colony didn't leave honey stores behind, and they probably died from starvation ( is my assumption for most all winter kills ) In the past I did open up a winter killed colony, , several times ( like 3 times ), in all cases there were no honey or other products that could attact ants, or otherwise damage the house.

[G3farms]

Most of the dead outs that I have been into don't have any stores, best you could hope for is some wax to melt down.

G3

[Hobie]

If you are talking about taking the stores from dead-outs, I took 5 lbs off my 2 dead hives last spring. (They had all starved... apparently had eaten the honey within reach, and created an empty zone that the cluster would not pass to the honey above it.)

So I took the honey. Most of it was crystallized, and I ended up just setting the frames in the yard for clean-up. The rest I bottled for myself, and I haven't died yet. I don't think I would use the honey if the bees died from a pesticide kill or something, though.

It was the only honey I got this year. Got a new cut-out and a swarm, and decided to let them keep every drop of their hard-earned treasure this year. Hopefully that will help them make it through to Spring. That's 6 more months, up here.

[cow pollinater]

I do but I only do extractions for little old ladies and churches, etc. I make money with live bees but a cutout or something like that really isn't worth the time for money involved. I pretty much just clean everything out as best as I can no matter what the situation as I know darn good and well who they're going to call when another swarm moves in next spring... Much easier to scrape out some comb than to deall with hot bees in the side of a wall.

[BjornBee]

The thing will be is I won't know what is behind the wall or the ceiling. I have several extractions, and I mentioned that there may be a good chance they just die out over winter. The homeowner still wants me to come out and remove anything that may be inside the wall, as in two cases, some staining had happened. So I will be going in and perhaps doing nothing more than cutting out some comb. They do not want to do it themselves, and be surprised after cutting a hole in the wall.

I just really never thought much about something like this, and have not heard too much about it.

[Iddee]

Don't forget, if it's a deadout, a swarm will likely move in before you get there.

Just remember one thing. NEVER do the repairs. If another swarm moves in within 5 years, they will want it done free because you didn't fix it right this time. Put that responsibility on someone else.

[Hobie]

Don't forget, if it's a deadout, a swarm will likely move in before you get there.

...unless it is a dead-out in your boxes in your bee yard.

[onehorse]

I had a guy call me that didn't want me to touch anything but the bees, he wanted to open the hive up and he wanted to close it up, I was only need to take out the comb and bees. He told me that he was a building contractor and wanted it done his way, which was fine by me, I didn't want to do the cutout anyway. But he never called back, so my guess is that hive got Raid instead.

[Yuleluder]

Hey onehorse I spoke to a guy like that last year. I think he just wanted to pick my brain, and steal my techniques for removing bees. I use to work with a pest control guy doing removals. It basically turned out to be training for him, so he could market himself as bee removal expert. Be careful what information you pass to people, they may be using it to steal your business. Watch those pest control guys, lol!