Stung in the Head 3 times and 1 in the face!

Today's hive removal, 2 hives removed for the price of one! 

This is the time

Right now is such a great time for the bees! They have   lot of food with all of these wonderful flowers out and they will produce honey!

LA city visit and bees in Orange County California

It was a trip to remember last weekend.  I had a good friend of mine, ask me to bring out my bee stuff to help with his Mom's bee problem in her backyard in Costa Mesa.  I agreed and was glad I did, she had a nice hive underneath a group of trees that required me to dig into.  I will not go into the details of this call here, but she is bee free now!  What an interesting call, this was my first time dealing with bees in a tree.

Interesting Swarm call and Bird House!

Monday was a loooooong  night.  My wife was reminded why she doesn't like coming out with me on bee calls.  We didn't finish up until after 2am!  Like usual the calls didn't go as planned.  The first call was a swarm that was suppose to be the usual swarm call where the bees get placed in a box and removed at nightfall.  Well they were the size of 2 basketballs, "just as our friends said" and they decided to congregate in crazy places outside of the box that night as well.  This was a huge swarm, but the bees don't spread out like that during a swarm call.  This was one of my first crazy calls in the 3 years we have been in business.  Then I went to Scottsdale to get the bee hive in a birdhouse.  Fifteen feet into the air with the hive just above my head, I had to balance and try and sawzall through the screw that held the birdhouse beehive to the mesquite!  This goes without saying to beekeepers and others in this business.  I needed to plan this out well, as to keep the bees from going crazy on me.  I waited and looked, and planned and waited some more.  There was no getting around the mesquite that was situated between other trees and shrubs not to mention the new outdoor light that was delicate and just installed.  I was hanging off of a 2" diameter branch with my left hand and sawing with my right hand.  After much sweat and patient sawing.  I did it...but the birdhouse was still rocking as though it were attached.  Frustrated I pulled and pushed myself up on the ladder on my tip toes and sweating profusely now, saw another screw! Well I was in the thick of it at that point so I went at it, but needed a new blade, since my metal blade I had was too short!  After 10 minutes of looking for the allen wrench I misplaced and getting the right blade on, I cut through that next screw like butter (well really ice cold butter with a spoon as my saw) not literally but it took me a good minute or so of sawing to get through that too.  Well that was just half of the night.  I won't mention the rest unless asked :)