The Wrecker Bees are Back!

[feldmarshal]

Hoop, are you familular with that chemical?

 

[hoop]

This time of the year it is hard to get the Queen to move with naphthalene(Or anything else non-lethal). There will be a lot of Brood and She will want(or be told) to stay with them.

 

[hndrsonj]

Seems simple: time for a full wrecker resto. Take the boom apart, remove bees, clean, paint, reassemble. No more bees!

 

[greenjeepster]

No the queen will not leave the brood this time of year...

There is a difference between a beekeeper and one who has done/does removals. Some beekeepers don't do removals or cutouts. Others do them all the time and know all the little tricks.

I used to do about 200 removals a year, but it is hard work and bees are cheap so I don't do them any more.

If you don't need the truck for a while a trap out can be done, and it will get all the bees out and likely the queen. It takes 6 weeks minimum.

If you need the truck you can kill them again, but this time seal up all the holes into the cavity with silicone... so foragers don't get in there and carry the pesticides out. It will also keep new bees from moving back in.

But I would call your local beekeeper have them look at the situation. It is hard to assess without physically looking at it.

Good to see there are other beeks on here.

 

[greenjeepster]

This time of the year it is hard to get the Queen to move with naphthalene(Or anything else non-lethal). There will be a lot of Brood and She will want(or be told) to stay with them.

She will come out to investigate open brood from another hive... Might be hard to set up in this situation because the entrance is so small.

 

[nk14zp]

Just give me the wrecker and your problem is solved.

 

[nf6x]

Seems simple: time for a full wrecker resto. Take the boom apart, remove bees, clean, paint, reassemble. No more bees!

I don't have suitable equipment to remove the boom and crane base. I want to use this wrecker to help me install a knuckleboom on my M923 at some point, and then sell the wrecker to somebody who can give it more time and attention than I can. I'll need to get the bees out before I can either use the truck or make any of the repairs that it needs.

If you don't need the truck for a while a trap out can be done, and it will get all the bees out and likely the queen. It takes 6 weeks minimum.

If you need the truck you can kill them again, but this time seal up all the holes into the cavity with silicone... so foragers don't get in there and carry the pesticides out. It will also keep new bees from moving back in.

But I would call your local beekeeper have them look at the situation. It is hard to assess without physically looking at it.

Having a local bee remover look at it sounds like a good idea in any case. If he thinks can coax the queen out within 2-3 months, then that's worth a try. If not, then I just need to get the truck back into useful operation. Sealing up the area where the bees are would be pretty hard, as they appear to be down between the bed's rails in the turntable area, and I don't see any way to get at the area without lifting the crane off the turntable. And even that would need to be done after the bees are gone, and I don't have the equipment to do it.

 

[1958 M274]

M9 Flamethrower - YouTube

 

[nf6x]

I am a Beekeeper and a Licensed Commercial Applicator in the Pest Control Market. Do you want to save the bees? Or do you just want your wrecker back?
Your plan sucks.
I can help you one way or the other. Up Front......If you want to save the bees, it can take a few weeks.

Getting the truck back is my primary goal. I'm willing to delay that for a while in order to save the bees, but a few months would be about the maximum. I'd prefer to avoid using poison if possible. If the bees can be persuaded to move into a different hive, then do you think the steam cleaner approach might remove the leftover honeycomb, honey, and residual poison (from the last poisoning; hopefully I can avoid using poison this time)? Disassembling the crane enough to get hands-on access to the hive area isn't a viable option for me.

I don't even mind if the bees live somewhere out of my way on my property, but inside one of my vehicles just isn't acceptable.

BTW, the first time I had this problem, I was up against a time constraint that would not have allowed a multi-week bee removal process. The truck had to be made operational and moved in order for my home construction to begin.

 

[greenjeepster]

Sealing up the area where the bees are would be pretty hard, as they appear to be down between the bed's rails in the turntable area, and I don't see any way to get at the area without lifting the crane off the turntable. And even that would need to be done after the bees are gone, and I don't have the equipment to do it.

Are you able to post some more pics of the entrance they are using and the area you think they are in?

 

[nf6x]

Are you able to post some more pics of the entrance they are using and the area you think they are in?

I'll try to do that. I never got around to reinstalling the floor plates that I removed last time I worked this problem. I have to hand it to those bees... they moved into an armored steel fortress!

 

[hoop]

Green man is spot on...I will leave this extraction for him. He is really good with the typing and I have to talk.
Trust him.

 

[nf6x]

I won't have a chance to take any new pictures of the 5-ton apiary until this weekend, but I found some pictures from back in 2007 (when the first family moved in) that I may not have posted before. First, here are some pictures in which some honeycomb is visible, from before I removed any floor plates.

The first two pictures show the edge of a bit of honeycomb that was visible from under the truck; note the axle position and the crane drive gearbox to judge where the camera's looking.

The third picture shows a bit of honeycomb that was visible inside the crane bed underneath the crane turntable, before I removed the floor plates. The edge of the big crane rotation gear is visible.

More pictures to follow shortly...

 

[nf6x]

Next, here are some pictures after I pulled off all of the removable floor plates, and just before my failed attempt to burn them out with a propane torch. Again, this was back in 2007.

I melted/burned all of the visible honeycomb, but it didn't have any noticeable affect upon the presence of bees. As far as I could tell, the majority of the hive was buried in the area bounded by the wrecker bed rails, turntable mechanism, and other structural and mechanical stuff. I could not find any way to get access to the area without lifting the crane off of the turntable (which I'm not equipped to do), and it wasn't clear that I'd have good access even then; there's a lot of structural stuff in that area to support the crane, with plenty of well-protected confined volume for the bees to build inside. There's also not just a few small holes to be plugged; there are lots of gaps bounded by moving parts, and coated with 47 years worth of grease and hydraulic fluid leakage. They just picked a heckuva spot in which to build!

 

[greenjeepster]

It looks addressable enough to me to remove it by cutting out the combs... It would have to be reached from underneath.

If it were me: I would bring a comb of open brood and place it as close to the exposed comb as possible. If the queen smells the foreign brood she will come out to fight the invading queen.... when she doesn't find an invading queen she will spread pheromone around the brood to stake her claim. It usually takes 15-20 minutes for her to come out on the brood frame...

After you have her the rest will have to be trapped out or removed 1 comb at a time.

 

[nf6x]

I eliminated the visible combs in those pictures, with no effect. As far as I can tell, they're mostly inside the turntable mechanism area, which is essentially a 1/4" thick welded steel box with the only access via those narrow gaps around the big gear that's visible. I don't have a second crane to lift off the infested crane for access to the turntable innards, so it's as if the bee hive was inside a gear box with the only practical access being through the fill and drain plugs.

Even the visible comb in those pictures (i.e., the stuff that they added on outside the confinement of the turntable area) is harder to get to than it looks, as the top has a crane in the way, and the bottom is directly over the axles. I shot the pics with a zoom lens from about 6' away from the combs. The visible comb in the pictures is poking out from small gaps, and the turntable area isn't open from below. This is why I'm considering a steam cleaner to melt and flush out the combs (ideally after getting the bees to move out), since I lack the means to remove the crane in order to get hand-sized access into the turntable area.

Luring the queen out sounds interesting. Once she's captured and confined, will enough of her bees follow her out to keep the brood viable in their new home?

 

[greenjeepster]

The nurse bees will not follow the queen out, they will stay with the brood... if the comb cant be physically removed, a trap out will have to be done. The queen will be placed in the bait hive and all the entrances blocked except 1... that one will have a funnel placed over it so as the bees leave they can't find their way back in... they will enter the new bait hive and slowly the old colony is removed as bees don't return to it and all the leftover brood hatch out.

If they can't lure the queen out the trapout will take 6-8 weeks, with the queen caught it can be done in 3-4 weeks.

 

[quickfarms]

Any recommendations on who could do the trap method in so cal?

 

[nf6x]

I have a number for a guy near me who I'll try calling:


Bob's Bee Farm and Swarm Rescue
951-377-4002


I got it from another one of the regulars at my local SBUX, who had a bee problem at home.