Backyard Beehive Adventures
/We had a very adventurous day at the studio Monday! Jennifer the Bee Wrangler came over to help move a bee hive that was living in a tree in the yard. The tree has been dropping limbs and badly needs to be trimmed but the tree guys will not go near it until the bees are gone. I have been interested in bee keeping for a while and really wanted to keep the hive. I've even been making honey comb like sculptures, subconsciously inviting bees into my life. Miraculously, a friend pointed me to Jennifer, a local Houston bee wrangler, who will come and take the bees, allowing them 2 months to regenerate their hive and then bring them back to install in a new box hive in my yard. Check out Jennifer's site and blog at www.thebeewrangler.com. The images below to give a glimpse of the amazing process she uses to get the bees out of the hive. Here's a hint: it involves a shop-vac!
subconscious sculpture
Step 1: making smoke to calm the bees
Step 2: Cutting off the honeycombs
Step 3: The vacuum
Step 4: Cutting the hole bigger
Step 5: Searching for the queen and pulling out more honeycombs from inside the hole
Step 6: Making sure the queen did not fall out!
Step 7: Checking out the honeycombs
Looks like the queen is in there!
Hive relocation SUCCESS!! Thank you Jennifer!!