I was initially called to this Castaway's Beach home to remove a swarm that was clustered on the underside of a roof overhang. It turned out that the bees, that appeared to be a clustered swarm, were in fact bearding outside a new hive and that most of the swarm had already moved into the wall. As a result, this job changed from a fairly simple swarm removal to a slightly more complex cut-out. I let the colony settle in before returning 3 days later to finish the job

I chose not to use my bee-vacuum on this job, mainly because this hive was accessed via the roof, two storeys high, and I knew it had only been there for 3 days. All I had to do was find the queen and then I wouldn’t need to lug my vacuum and associated paraphernalia all the way up to this height!

As usual the queen took a bit of finding which was no surprise given that this was a giant swarm. I figured my best chance was to sift through the bees, handful by handful. Persistence paid off and I eventually spotter her royal highness disappearing into a cluster of bees before I was able to scoop her up. This also proves the point that the rest of the colony does not protect the queen, other than providing her with cover, otherwise I would have ended up with plenty of stings during the process.

Thank you Ian for calling us in to do this beehive removal and save another colony of bees.