There is now screen mesh over the ports, which I should have done in the first place. But they have been up in the air for six months at a time for the past four years without incident.
I've seen that method. No one on the planet wants to harm these little guys, especially not the pros.
I suspect they would not have returned anyway. Creatures of habit. If you were removed as ingloriously as that, the queen would seek comfort elsewhere.
Next year's scout bees will be attracted be the residual smell of comb and the hormones from brood cells.
It certainly looks like a very new swarm. Comb nice and white. There are probably already eggs laid in it, its among the first thing that gets done in the new colony.
Another week and it would have been a more interesting job . The speed at which they build comb is nothing short of amazing .
Bill, try a few red chilies, the solid kind, heated over embers at the bottom of your chimney.
A squirrel had built a nest in my kitchen exhaust vent, so i cleaned up and put a piece of mesh to stop it.
It came around the wall, and built it again, entering from the fan side.
So I heated a solid chili and put it there, it set fire to the nest, and gave a strong lingering smell.
No trouble now.
Burnt red chilies are strong smelling, the smell lingers.
Tobacco works as well.
A squirrel had built a nest in my kitchen exhaust vent, so i cleaned up and put a piece of mesh to stop it.
It came around the wall, and built it again, entering from the fan side.
So I heated a solid chili and put it there, it set fire to the nest, and gave a strong lingering smell.
No trouble now.
Burnt red chilies are strong smelling, the smell lingers.
Tobacco works as well.
No eggs yet, not even honey. Yes it was a very new colony, maybe 4 days old. They do build quick!
Slackers. Bees live 3-5 weeks and it can take IIRC 18-22 days to go from egg to worker, so there's a short opportunity to get the colony up and running ....
Sounds like you know your stuff. I have just never seen them return to a place where their paradise was interrupted.
Kept them for about 15 years. Saw enough cases of bees returning to the scene of the crime unless either the hole was stopped up or people did something like Naresh is duggesting.
Sometimes people don't know they're got a swarm for several years. A shop iny town had some in the ceiling and the first they knew was honey dripping through a crack in the plaster... They had to take the floor above it up to get to it and the colony ran for about 8 feet between two joists.
Oh please.. However I cannot claim full credit, without the help of the keyboard on my phone and my reluctance to wear glasses none of this would have been possible....
The few hundred straggler bees just would not go away, they kept clinging to the outside of the box. The crew don’t care much but of course the actors and dancers are all a-buzz.
So about an hour ago we strapped a small empty hive to the top of the speaker. Wow! They made a beeline for the new hive. Just about all of them have moved into the new space.
So about an hour ago we strapped a small empty hive to the top of the speaker. Wow! They made a beeline for the new hive. Just about all of them have moved into the new space.