If you've been reading the past installments of this gripping story,
Episode 1
Episode 2
You'll know that this is where we are:
A migrating hive found some handy dandy cracks in our house and a dark, cool place with plenty of room to expand inside. I called up a friend who is a beekeeper to ask for advice and he said, "I'll bee right over!" I just said, "Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou..."
He marched into the swarm, put his ear against the house and said, "For sure, they're building in there. If we can open up the area and let some light in, they might leave."
I was all
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But he said, "Don't worry, there's no eggs yet for them to protect, so they won't sting." and demonstrated by picking one up in his fingers.
OK.
We pulled off the wood covering the area, but behind that were structural timbers holding the floor up, so we couldn't take any more away.
Plan B: We might be able to smoke them out, BUT we risk them retreating further under the house. We didn't see that we had much choice, I really didn't want to go the extermination route unless absolutely necessary.
We drilled some holes into the timber, which instantly became bee superhighways. The bees were all, "Oh, how considerate of you, now we have much better access instead of having to squeeze through those tiny cracks."
So, he set up a hive next to the hole to give them somewhere to go to.
Then started smoking them.
It looked like it might be working.
Bee-buddy had to go, but he said to give them a few hours and perhaps smoke them again at around 3 or 4pm so that they don't have a lot of time to think about where to go before dusk.
3pm came and the bees hadn't moved into the box. They were all, "That smoke was unpleasant, but it's gone now, so let's get back to work redecorating this lovely under-house space."
We were still worried about them retreating further under the house, so I intrepidly put some thick clothes on, stuck a torch to my forehead, grabbed the smoker and started wriggling under the house. The only entry was, of course, at the extreme other end of the house, so I was going to have to belly-crawl the entire length of the house. The idea was to make the smoke thicker under the house so they would be forced out the holes.
After wriggling for what seemed like a very long time...
There was a brick wall blocking off the very place I needed to get to. So, I shimmied over a couple of rafter-spaces to the right...
Those stumps are maybe 30cm high. I didn't think I was built to get through there and anyway, it looked like the entire section was blocked off. So, I wriggled back out.
Plan B2 involved drilling another hole behind where the hive was gathering, and feeding the smoke in behind them through a long pipe.
It looked like we were succeeding, so what better time for a social media moment?
Nope, that wasn't quite the right angle, the hive was blocking the camera's line of sight to the actual bees. Let's try this again:
Some of the bees didn't want to cooperate:
They started boiling out of the (previously taped) cracks inside! We pasted more tape over the cracks and got working with a cup and a piece of thin cardboard to catch them against the window and throw them out the door.
Bee buddy was on the phone. I was able to tell him that the air was thick with bees. He said to have a look around to see if there are any large clumps of bees forming anywhere - perhaps in trees nearby. We scouted around and...
SUCCESS!
Right then I had to rush off to an appointment. While I was gone, the kids took over and helped Bee-buddy snip off the branch they'd landed on, pop them in a hive and take them home.
There are still a few bees hanging around. It would have been best to leave the hive there for a while to let the stragglers catch up to where everyone had moved to, but it was getting late and he said that it was important to have them stable before it started to get dark. Even though they are perfectly placid now, they can't see in the dark, so if you mess with them when it's dark, they freak out and start attacking. These leftovers are hanging around the last place they saw their queen, but should disperse over the next couple of days.
Amazingly, we got through all that without a single bee-sting! And learnt a LOT about bees on the journey. I'm even considering setting up a hive of my own for next spring.
