A few leftover bees…

Hah!  I received a call today from a gentleman that was referred to me by another beekeeper.  He said that he had a lot of bees on the outside eve of his house – and that he’d had bees removed from a wall of his home about 3 weeks ago.  I thought to myself – there may have been enough stragglers to cluster for a few weeks…  I’ll go scoop  ”em up and be on my way… No biggie.

When I arrived and evaluated the situation – It was a “holy crap” moment.  The “cluster” was under the 2nd floor eve, and was about 2 feet long by about 8-10″ deep, and as wide as the eve (about 12″ at that spot).  With that many bees – I knew they had drawn comb.

Whoever had performed the work before – assured them that he had removed the queen and all the bees.  The homeowner’s family told me that the comb and bees had been “bagged up”.  Eh?  Bagged up?  Really?  Okay – so someone came and exterminated the bees.

Whatever the case – there was now 4  sizeable exterior combs built by the bees, and pollen and nectar had been stored in them.  After removing a comb or two, I also saw that there were FRESHLY laid eggs.  Less then 3 days old.  There was a queen present.

I was going to bring a 5-frame nuc to put the bees in – but I felt a little tug of instinct telling me “bring a box or two”.  I did.  I brought 2 mediums – which wound up being perfect for this amount of bees.  I was VERY happy that I’d brought the right boxes.

They are gentle bees – no sting attempts or bumping – and they now sit in the Richardson apiary.  I’ll probably combine my “cluster” that was left from when I removed my other hives from the city, as they are already building comb.  It would be good to combine them with the huge rescue from today.