Saturday, May 30, 2009

Cut-out 5-30-09

My friend, Gabe Blatt, called & told me there were bees under the eaves in an old house in West Huntington. We met up with new beekeeper, Pete Meadows, to do the cut out & try and save these bees. We met the owner's neighbor, Kathy Seelinger, who told us that this was the third oldest house in Huntington.
When we looked up, we saw lots of honeycomb & bees.

Up we all went onto the scaffolding to begin the job of cutting the honeycomb out without harming the bees. As I cut out the combs, I handed them to Gabe who cut them down to fit into special frames that will hold them in place until the bees can fix them up right. What didn't fit into the frames, Gabe put into a large plastic bucket to feed back to the bees later. You can see the bees begin to gather at the very top of their new home to signal to the others that 'this is now the place to land'!

Gabe headed down to the ground and we handed down the large plastic bucket filled with honeycomb that didn't fit into the hive. Pete & I put the siding back onto the house & Pete used a very low powered bee vac to suck the remaining bees into a wire mesh cage without harming them. When we were done, we lowered the new hive of bees down & cut of a nice piece of wild honeycomb for Kathy to eat....YUMMY!
Gabe called Gary Strickland to tell him of our success & set up our next cut-out in Altizer on Wednesday. Thanks to the Ferguson family for calling us to save the bees instead of an exterminator to spray them. Thanks to Kathy Seelinger for giving us the history of the house & the bees. And thanks to Pete & Gabe for a real fun time...

18 comments:

Dan O'Hanlon said...

from Binnur Ozturk: All I can say is WOW!!! What a great job...This year I bought praying mantis pods and I'm currently waitibng for them to hatch..

Cheers, Binnur

Dan O'Hanlon said...

from Hank Dial: Isn't Kathy one of the coolest people?

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Dan O'Hanlon replied: Yes, you should have seen her with that big piece of honeycomb, Hank -- she is a HOOT!

Dan O'Hanlon said...

And Hank said: LOL, I can imagine it now

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Gareth Saxby commented: there a dieing breed good on you with out them where is pollination

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Gabe Blatt said: Dan, great pictures and a good story line. I think everyone in the state will enjoy this outing.
Thanks for all the help.
Gabe

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Mike Perry commented: You guys are good. Congratulations. Mike

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Patty Lake exclained: THANK YOU so much Dan!! HOW interesting!! I hope all is good your way.....all here is going alright, MOM says hello, IKE says hello and SO DO I!! Tehee...Great job by the way!!!
Take care Dan!!!
Patty Lake

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Gargeth Saxby added: or a good smoking but better to get them moved

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Anne Graybeal asked: Hmm, so this is what it takes to get the bees from underneath our deck??

warren said...

Looks great folks! A job well done! You shoulda called the news channels! You could have been on TV!

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Jonathan McCallister, who has done cut-outs, wrote: holy cow, that's a perfect wild comb.
very very nice.

does this mean you're going to do mrs. fabers removal as well?
;-)

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Carloyn Bagby said: Thanks.

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Lynda Holup wrote: Dan- was fun hearing your story about saving the bees in W Huntington and then watching it on your blog. Great story! Good to see you tonight.

Lynda & Dave

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Fr. Joseph of Holy Cross Monastery wrote: Looks like fun, I've still never hived a swarm. I love the music!

-monk joseph

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Raamie Barker emailed: Bees and your involvement with them is getting more interesting and interesting every time I read or see something about it. Hives in a house is unusual, but at least they have a number on the door to remember where to go! Loss of bees and hives was even the topic of some of the discussion the other night on Bill Maher's show on HBO. He blamed the problem on the Republicans. RB

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Ken Cole said: I wan't so happy about my last cutout. I got over 50 stings to my hands.

Good job saving the bee's
Ken

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Pete Meadows exclaimed: I had to double dog swear to my kids that was really me in the bee suit! They think I'm suffering from ALL TIMERS as they say