NMexicoBeeLady

In Southeast New Mexico, honeybees can either be European varieties, (Good bees), or dreaded Africanized, (Killer) bees. Here I am called to assist a homeowner who has had honeybees colonized underneath his house. In surveying how best to remove them, I found them to be extremely aggressive and opted to entomb the queen and colony and let them die before removing the comb. After sealing their access/egress, several hundred forager (worker) bees gathered at the entrance. I attempted to vacuum them up, in order to integrate them with a hive that is low on workers. They showed an unprecedented degree of hostility- even in the absence of a queen to defend- and I quickly ditched that and moved onto plan B, (extermination). These workers were a 10 out of 10 on the Scoville Pain scale, and yes, they do sting through the suit.

Making good use of 2-frame excluder cages, these frames from a hive that was usurped by Killer Bees await their sentence. For the Worker bees, a life sentence in service to a Quality Queen. For the Drones, the sentence was death. The Killer Queen met her fate when some frames "slipped" into the horse trough.

This honeybee colony cut-out, (rip-out) turned out to be very nice bees. I took great care in adding them to my colony. They were small and feral, but still colorful, unlike the mostly black Africanized bees. They had some wax moth inside the wall structure, but I saw no Verroa mite parasites. WELCOME TO MY APIARY, girls!

A couple of weeks ago it seemed that winter was releasing its grip here. Temps were reaching up into the 70's (f) and I decided to check my hives. The good bees had eaten most of the fondant under their lids, but I had one questionable queen and one queen that had obviously usurped my Beeweaver hive and needed to be killed. The Africanized hive strangely enough had eaten very little of their fondant patty. After I turned the camera off, I went and stuffed the entrance with steel wool; sealing the hive. Did it die? I'll update later.

"Ross Rounds" are these wonderful segments which pop out to make individual honeycomb circles which can then have a top and bottom snapped on, and a label wrapped around the side, sealing it. It has a beautiful presentation and can be given as gifts or sold at Farmer's markets. Around here, Ross Round honey comb (approx. 8 ounces) sells for $25. each.

This was up on a roof, trying to use an excluder to remove bees from a chimney. Ultimately, it did not work. The colony had to be destroyed when it could not be removed. You can't win them all.