This colony of honeybees made themselves a new home inside this owl box. The “owl box” bees are one of my favorite memories as a new beekeeper! When I got a call about the owl box bees I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I Googled it to try to find some information but there wasn’t much to be found. That is why I decided to share this blog. Hopefully it can help someone else with this unique removal!

First think you want to do is make sure the “bees” are actually honeybees. Many folks think they know what a honeybee looks like but in all of my years of beekeeping I can tell you that lots of folks do not, in fact, know what a honeybee is. Make sure to ask for a video and make sure they are honeybees before you commit to removing them-otherwise you might be showing up to remove some wasps or yellowjackets and well, not many want the pleasure of that.

You’ll also want to make sure the home you are being called to has a ladder so you can get up to the bees. Make sure you bring your own ladder if they don’t have one but the other thing I’ve learned over the years is that people don’t know how to measure height so you might want to bring two ladders-the tallest you have and perhaps a smaller one. Bring all of your gear in a big plastic bin. I like to think through all of the steps in the process and that is how I pack-one step at a time.

You need to see what the entrance looks like before you go get the bees so you know what to bring with you to seal the entrance. In this case I brought a stapler and some chicken wire that I had in my bee shed. Easy peasy! Make sure the entrance is sealed really well because bees can make it through very small spaces- and you don’t want to have a bunch of honeybees flying around in your vehicle when you are transporting the box.

I brought the bee net for extra insurance…but I need to tell you something, friends-you better make sure it’s sealed so bees don’t start piling out of it on your drive home…which is what happened to me.

When I move bees in my vehicle (inside my vehicle rather than in my truck bed) I count the number of bees I can see in my rearview mirror so I get a “baseline of bees”, so to speak.

I can’t believe I even just wrote that.

But yes, a baseline of bees can tell you if bees are actually getting out of whatever you have them in. On this particular trip I counted 5 bees at first. I was comfortable with that. Five bees aren’t a big deal and I turned the car on and started driving.

A few minutes later I glanced up and I see what I think are more bees than I had counted originally…5…6…7…all the way to 12. Ruh roh. I rationalized twelve bees and kept driving but it got to the point where I had to stop and see because I couldn’t keep counting flying insects in my rearview while going 60mph. Turns out the guy that helped me get the owl box down hadn’t closed the bee net tight enough and bees had found their way out and were trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

I finally made it to my apiary and I opened the hive up as soon as possible to let the bees get oriented. I placed the owl box in the same place I planned to put their permanent hive. Some folks say to leave bees inside a hive for 24 hours when you move them but I have never done that and it always works out just fine.

When using rubber bands and empty frames you must be careful not to smoosh the comb. Depending on how new the comb is that can be more difficult than not. Just take your time and go slowly. Make sure you place the comb in the same position it was in the hive.

Once you get all the comb in the hive you will see how easily the bees will follow-especially if you have the queen. In this case, I did see the queen on a frame and I placed it in the box so I didn’t need to grab her or put her in a queen clip, but it’s good to have one of those just in case you need it!

When it was all said and done my new bees loved their new home in my backyard in their brand new Hoover Hive, which I highly recommend! The bees still live in their Hoover hive in my backyard and are doing great 5 years later!