5/9/11

The backyard dresser hive

Ty in his improvised bee suit.

LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:
I met Ty and Rick Saturday morning to do a cut-out from dresser in Long Beach. Yolanda and Johnny had a dresser that bees had moved into 8 years ago! The bees had gone into the 2nd drawer when it was upright and then at one point it fell down and they went into the top drawer.

Yolanda and Johnny.



This was a really strong hive and was producing swarms regularly. There were 4 swarms in the past month so it was time for the bees to move into a bigger hive, so Yolanda and Johnny called the Bee Rescue Hotline.

I only had one extra veil so Ty jumped in with borrowed dishwashing gloves and lots of duct tape. These were some mean bees but Ty was great and took a bunch of stings and kept on smiling. We got them into a deep box but unfortunately I only had medium frames. Ughh!

Inside the hive there were a bunch of queen cells including some closed ones. The left side of this comb had drone cells and nice capped worker cells on the right.


These bees will go to Malibu where they can live undisturbed and Ty and Rick will get some nicer bees. Not quite new beekeepers but almost. Ty gives a wrap-up in the video just below.

—roberta