HELP!! Any Tree climbers w/in driving distance?

[Gooserider]

I had a really bizzare thing happen today - it is NOT supposed to happen according to the books, but...

I was splitting wood this afternoon, when I heard this loud SPLAT from behind me, sounded like a giant mud ball hitting the ground - I went over and found a BIG chunk of honey comb on the ground, with several other smaller peices nearby, and a lot of rather irritated honeybees. Fortuneately I'm a beekeeper, so I ran inside and put on my suit, then gathered up some of my spare parts enough to make a sort of improvised hive, and went back out and scooped up as much as I could find and put it in my improvised hive.

I then started looking for where this honeycomb came from - NORMALLY honey bees never build on the outside of anything, only inside a hollow tree or other structure where they can protect it. But then the comb wouldn't have fallen, unless the hollow was falling apart - but I didn't see any sign of that sort of debris on the ground.

I finally spotted the colony, it is VERY far up in an oak tree, looking like they started inside a small hollow at a fork, and then out grew it.

I would like to get the hive down so that I can capture it (I can use the queen among other things) but I don't have any climbing gear or experience - I haven't been up a tree since I was a little kid :coolsmile:

Anybody have climbing gear / experience that lives near Billerica MA? I can supply partial bee protection for 2 people besides myself - (and where I think the cut would want to be made is well below where the colony is) I'd even be willing to go up the tree if you can show me how...

Gooserider

 

[BrotherBart]

"Wanted: Person to climb high oak tree in clunky spacesuit with running chainsaw and piss off bees. No experience necessary. Free mead for survivors."

 

[Gooserider]

"Wanted: Person to climb high oak tree in clunky spacesuit with running chainsaw and piss off bees. No experience necessary. Free mead for survivors."

:lol: Good summary, though as I've said, I'm willing to do the climbing if that's possible.

Actually the Bee Suit isn't that bad, though it might get strange to combine it with chainsaw protective gear - basically it's just a set of coveralls with a veil and hat attached. Certainly will do mead and honey for the help, probably some other stuff as well - negotiable... (alternatively I might see if the local hardware place rents bucket trucks...)

Gooserider

 

[elkimmeg]

Goose you alreadyh met your man Keymanis a climber

 

[Henz]

dude, are you serious

 

[Jags]

Could you start the cut at say..... 3ft off the ground?

 

[myzamboni]

Could you start the cut at say..... 3ft off the ground?

ROFLMAO

 

[Gooserider]

dude, are you serious

Quite... I want that colony! If I can get it into a hive then it will probably survive the winter quite nicely, if not I can just about guarantee that it won't. My existing hives are not doing all that well, so I could certainly use a strong colony boost and a new queen.

The problem is that the branch in question is WAY up - it is hard to tell for sure, but I'm guessing somewheres in the 50-60' range, and it's pretty darn skinny as well, looks like about 4-5 forks out from the main trunk, maybe about 4-6" diameter, however the tree is definitely an oak, I think red if it matters.

Gooserider

 

[DriftWood]

Try the local Edison electric wire limb clearing crews. Some moon light for a very cheep price, they are masters of the hi-rope and chain saw arts.

 

[cbrodsky]

"Wanted: Person to climb high oak tree in clunky spacesuit with running chainsaw and piss off bees. No experience necessary. Free mead for survivors."

So I saw this topic listed in the main page - having no idea what it was about, I somehow knew that if I clicked it, I would soon be be laughing my as* off.

I have to say, it exceeded my expectations :lol:

This will go down as a hearth.com classic.

-Colin

 

[keyman512us]

Goose (Can't believe this...lol)...

I might be willing to help you out... But first a couple of questions? Is the colony in/on the main trunk or a leader off the tree?? Do you have a smudge pot or some rope to burn to calm the bees if need be???...I can rig the ropes and help out for a minimal amount.

Apiary work has always interested me... but I'm not too fond of the idea of trying my hand at it up topside...lol

 

[Gooserider]

Goose (Can't believe this...lol)...

I might be willing to help you out... But first a couple of questions? Is the colony in/on the main trunk or a leader off the tree?? Do you have a smudge pot or some rope to burn to calm the bees if need be???...I can rig the ropes and help out for a minimal amount.

Apiary work has always interested me... but I'm not too fond of the idea of trying my hand at it up topside...lol

It is on a branch that is about 4-5 branches out from the main trunk. This is a very spreading oak tree - I would guess 3'+ DBH, but it forks about every 10-15' on the way up. The colony is near the outer end of one of the branches that is fairly high up, but there are some branches above it. I'm not sure how close you can get to the colony as the branch it's on is probably in the 4-6" diameter range. It is also somewhat close to the house, though I think it could be dropped OK if it came down straight, or was angled properly.

I do have a couple of beekeeper's smokers - The metal can with a bellows on the side style. I also have one bee-suit, and a couple of hats and veils for protection.

Gooserider

 

[begreen]

I did this once with a swarm that was up about 25 ft in a big fir tree. Thought I was crazy to try, but it worked. What I did was borrow my neighbor's biggest ladder. I laid this up against the lower limbs. Then I suited up and climbed up the ladder as far as I could go. I brought up a cardboard box and my apple picking pole. The apple pole has metal fingers on the end to grasp apples. Some how I managed all this stuff in the beesuit.

Once up there I set the box corner on a ladder rung above me, then used the pole to rake down the cluster which was about 6 ft above. I caught the bulk of them in the box. There were bees swarming everywhere at that point, but I persisted with multiple attempts until I had the bulk of the bees . The box got very heavy and I gingerly crawled down the ladder with the box. I had a hive box ready below the tree. I guess it worked because after I had poured the bulk of them into the hive, the rest started flowing into the entrance. Very exciting, but rewarding. Don't do this at home kiddies.

 

[fishing]

You might consider renting a sissor or boom lift. Much easier and no one will Die!

 

[Jags]

For some reason, I keep getting this picture in my head of Darwin, somewhere, rubbing his hands together with a chit eating grin saying 'ahhh, lets see how THIS one turns out'.

 

[karl]

I'm thinking that hive is going to be empty the minute you start sawing on the limb, and alot of bees are going to be going after the guy with the saw. If you live out in the country and if it's only a 6" branch and 50 feet up. I think I would put some pumpkin balls in the 12 gauge and just shoot the branch down. If you had a slug barrel it would be a one shot deal. Just make sure you don't have anything important for a 1/2 mile behind where you're aiming. If you do, then find a someone with a turkey gun and use shot. Just an idea coming from a redneck.

 

[Gooserider]

Well Keyman and I got them down, nobody died, nobody got stung, and the survivors did enjoy a bottle of mead... Keyman did the climbing, and cut the branch about 10' below the colony, mostly because that was as close as he could get before it started getting to shaky - his estimate was 45-50' up, about what I was guessing. He didn't wear a suit, but I did down on the ground where the hive landed - and I needed it.

We tried to put the branch down as gently as we could, but it hit against another lower branch and raked a lot of the comb off, so I was running around in the suit picking up the fragments of comb and trying to get them into a hive box. I got most of the peices picked up, and then borrowed keyman's saw (I like that Stihl saw!) and cut the branch apart so that we had just the part with the hive on it that I put on top of the box. I figure to let them settle down a bit tonight and then tomorrow do some more cleanup work to try and get them actually INSIDE the hive box, with the branch gone and a lid on everything.

Overall it went pretty well, and I owe Keyman a big round of thanks. He took a fair number of pictures, hopefully he will post them soon.

I did promise him that I will keep folks posted in this thread as to how well the hive recovers.

Gooserider

 

[begreen]

Congrats, Goose. If you got the queen in the hive, and she settles in, you won't have to do anything else. Add an empty super around the broken hive and then a lid on top. They'll find her and will head in to the new home.

 

[Gooserider]

Congrats, Goose. If you got the queen in the hive, and she settles in, you won't have to do anything else. Add an empty super around the broken hive and then a lid on top. They'll find her and will head in to the new home.

Well that's the big question - the hive got broken up pretty badly when it brushed against another branch on the way down and I don't know if I got the queen on any of the peices I picked up. Hopefully she is either in there, or there is a new enough egg that they can make an emergency queen to replace her. I have all the peices in a super, but I need to get the remaining comb from off the branch bit that's currently laying across the top before I can get a top on the box. That will be tomorrows big project, probably done with lots of smoke...

I just wish this had been a swarm, as it would have been far easier to deal with - swarms like you mentioned earlier are MUCH easier to deal with since they don't have any stores or brood to protect, and they are LOOKING for a home, you provide one and they are happy as can be to move in. Here I had an established colony that broke all the rules, and that makes life much harder. I didn't get stung while picking up the broken hive bits, but they definitely popped my gloves a bunch of times.

Gooserider

 

[keyman512us]

Well Now I can change my avatar to Pooh holding the Stihl chainsaw...lol

"And the runner up for Hearth.com picture of the year for 2007..is GOOSE wielding the Stihl 036 with the most unique PPE for chainsawing"

 

[keyman512us]

One more time the finalists...

 

[keyman512us]

A couple more.... These views are from just where I wanna be looking at them...right here back at home on the computer. I had the easy part, climbing the tree swinging the chainsaw...goose had the really fun part of working up close and personal with the needless to say agitated bees. It was quite worth the price of admission watching from my perch in the tree at various points.

 

[keyman512us]

Mission accomplished...New habitat/home for natures bounty. Needless to say goose snapped these pictures since he had the right gear for the job "up close". Them bees are going to have to do some housekeeping once they get settled in...lol

 

[keyman512us]

I gotta say this has been the most interesting climbing experience in awhile...lol

Much like the 'labor of love' of tending bees, I had "The best seat in the house" from my perch up in the tree. I paused for a few minutes to take in the sights. I keep saying I'm gonna make some sort of shoulder holster for a digi camera for times like this "up topside". The biggest reason I climb is for the view. Whether it's the last time a view can be seen from a particular vantage point... or contently watching the "action down below". I've always equated it to watching the ants scurry around gathering the brush... Now? Busy bees...lol Both down below and up above. After the branch was "safely" (if you can say that) down on the ground... I watched the CLOUD of bees in the open hole where the hive was and mumbled a few expletives...along with what could be considered a prayer or two!

I knew I was fairly safe...had they been wasps or yellow jackets I wouldn't have felt comfortable... but after all they were docile honey bees. Not a single bee landed on me while I was up in the tree... but they were fairly well all around me while I was up there.

One bee did land on my shoulder... while I was walking around down on the ground tending to my ropes. After what it had been through I figured it had earned it. One out of 45,000 or so... I can live with that! I didn't even swat it off... just blew a little smoke from my cigarette and it went off on it's merry way.

The "play by play" from my perspective was one of reflection. Three things came into play...1st off gotta make sure it doesn't hit the house, and that was tenfold because the pictures don't show it...but right in line with the swing of this limb was a rather pricey tall and wide living room window. 2nd try to cut out the limb without wiping off half the side of the tree making it sexy in Charlie Browns' eyes for December 25th...3rd off how to actually get the 'package' which was way out and up on a shaky to say the least limb that amplified the stress on the oversized pine cone shaped hive... I still remember Gooses' sigh of dismay when the hive disintegrated in mid air...(thats what it did...I saw it), ultimately it further got swiped off threading its' way through the lower limbs... while it wasn't a 100% perfect 'drop'...nobody got hurt, the house was un-scathed...so the only other consideration is down to one bee....how the queen faired in all this...

The proof will be in the pudding...or more apropriately:

...The Honey.

 

[Gooserider]

Minor update - Today I went in with smoke and wired up as many of the peices of comb onto some empty frames as I could and ended up getting a set of 10 frames into the hive, though it's an ugly mess with alternating deep and medum frames sitting in a medium box, over an empty deep box. Also still have a lot of honeycomb on the bottom board, but it's better than it was. I scraped the remaining comb off the branch and put that in the box and closed it up pretty much.

No real problems and the bees were pretty mellow about the whole thing until I was closing up. Instead of the heavier gloves I wore yesterday, today I wore a pair of nitrile surgical gloves - normally the bees can't sting through them (It's funny to watch them try - they cant get the grip they need to drive the tail down, instead they fall off...) and they give a much better feel for doing delicate work. However when I was closing up managed to pin a bee between the hive body and my finger, and she got me in the finger tip, which makes typing a bit of a challenge...

I talked to my bee supply lady today, and she essentially said I've been doing the right thing so far. The current reccomendation is now to leave them sit for about a week or 10 days, then go back in and look for brood in the new blank frames that I put in. If the queen survived the ordeal, I will see brood as the other bees will move her to the clean frame in order to get her out of the messy half smashed combs and she will have had a chance to lay eggs in the new frames. If I see that, then I can start trying to merge this colony in with one of my other hives.

Of course they can't make life easy though - looking back up in the tree, it appears that at least some of the bees didn't come down with the hive, but instead have decided to set up housekeeping on the next branch up - Keyman, I think it was the fork you anchored your climbing rope to, up a couple further divides so that it was roughly over the spot where the other hive was. I will watch them and see what happens with them, but probably not worth trying to chase them down...

Gooserider