I was approached by a beekeeper friend who was offered a tree full of bees.  The lady whose property the tree was on wanted a beekeeper to get the bees so she called the one person she knew and made her offer.  The beekeeper friend of mine didn’t want to attempt the tree so he offered it to me.  I, of course being desperate for bees, I agreed to make the 1 hour trip up to cut the tree down.  Then the hour trip a couple days later to pick them up (I took advantage of an already planned trip to Independence and picked them up on the way back).  I decided to document the process I took to do this. When I picked up the bees it was raining cats and dogs out.  I was a long ways from home so I had to do it then, in the rain.

The first thing is to cut the tree down.  Be sure there are no other trees in the way to stop or to flip or roll the bee tree.  Make sure people are not around other than you.  The best time of day to do this is in the evening if you can.  The bees will be settling down for the night.

This particular tree was a small Walnut Tree.

Cutting out the trees in the way and cutting down the Bee Tree.

Bees guarding the entrance of the tree.

Cut the bee tree down and step back a good ways away because when the bees feel that sudden drop they will come out of the hive steaming mad.  Make sure you let the tree set for at least one day so they can begin to settle down and regroup.  I have heard that occasionally the tree will explode upon impact after cutting it down.  If this happens you will have to take care of them right away, but be warned you will probably get stung even through a suit and thick gloves if that happens.  In my case the little walnut tree stayed in tact and I ended up letting it set for 3 days (cut it down on my way to independence to visit family for the holiday weekend then cut it up on the way back).

Many beekeepers make jokes at me for wearing a full suit, but the truth is I would only do this with a full suit.  The bees are very protective of their hive and when you get to cutting through comb they get defensive.

When you get back to the tree cut off all the top sections and side limbs.  The vibrations of the saw on the trees will start to excite the bees but they wont be mad yet. Then try to estimate where the top of the comb is.  I cut the top off and looked at the wood to see if it was dying or not at that point.

Cutting the log to find beginning of hive.

Then I cut a foot down, and then another foot down and then found the top portion of the comb.

Size of top section of hole compared to the lighter used to light the smoker (which I never used).

In my case the bee tree was small and it was relatively quick to cut up but for the larger trees it may take a bit to get this step finished.  Once you have found the top portion of the comb measure a distance equal to the opening of a wood hive body frame.  Be sure that the foundation is not in the frame.  Get some thin wire and run at least two strips of wire down the length of the frame (just wrap it around the wood is fine).  Then get some cotton string ready and have a flat surface to work on.  Now take a couple splitting wedges and align top and bottom and with quick hard strokes, split the log.

Pulling apart log after splitting.

Try to split it with the ribbons of comb so half will go with one side of the log and the other half of the comb will go with the other half of the log.

View of the end of the top section.  Comb here is mostly honey.

View of the top section of the hive.

Take a Hive Tool and work loose the comb from the walls of the log.  You may need a knife to cut the comb to get it out.  Be sure to support the comb while you are working it out or you could end up ripping the part you have in your hand away from the part in the log.

Pulling comb out of the log.

Then set the section on the empty wired up frame, bees and all, and take cotton string and wrap it up against the wire.

Using a frame already prepped to pick up some more bees before sliding frame into box.

Once it is secured, place the frame on the bee tree hive and let the bees re-attach to the comb this will help to get more bees out, then you can go on to the next section while it is setting there and when the next section is done you can put the first section which is now covered in bees in the hive body you brought and place the next in the mass of bees in the tree and continue on.

Frames with feral comb.

Locate your hive right next to the fallen bee tree logs so the bees can work their way back to the new location.  Start first with the brood comb.  This is the most important.  Fill up a good portion of your hive body and then get some of the honey comb and place on the outside of the frames in the hive body. Be sure all the comb faces the same way so that the bees can tunnel through between them.  Just like in the picture above on the right side of the frame the comb goes top to bottom but on the left side the comb does not.  Keep it consistent throughout.

Now comes the fun part and if you are going to get stung this is when it will happen (if it doesn’t happen while you cutting the comb with the chainsaw).  Take a whisk broom set the bee tree half log on the hive and brush them into the hive. This assumes you can get the log up there, if you can’t because it is too big try and place the brood comb frames back into the mass of bees and then pull it out and shake the bees off into the hive. This is more time consuming but works too.

Brushing the remaining bees into hive.

When I finished I was soaked and worn out.  It doesn’t look like a lot of work but it is.  Seems almost not worth it but for a wild bee colony in an era of the Colony Collapse Disorder I will take the most natural way to get bees as I can to hopefully get a good strain of bees capable of defending off what I have read is a stomach virus like Nosema of which many people are New Nosema.

Drinking some Gatorade because I was worn out and soaking wet.

I took a ratchet strap and closed up the hive after letting the majority of the bees go in (since it was raining most went inside in about 30 minutes).   Strap it down good, you don’t want the boxes to shift any bit while being transported.  I nailed the bottom box to the bottom board so I will not separate.  This was a little trick I learned while working for the commercial bee keeper.

When you get the hive to its new location, setup another hive body with mostly brood comb (if you have it extra) and add a honey frame if you can to both sides of the box.  Open up your hive and put the new hive body box on top.  Something I did was to put a super of un-drawn comb above that box so they could begin to store honey.

Bees on top bars of added frames of drawn brood comb.

Bees through a 1/8 in crack between boxes.

Bees on top bars.

Bees between boxes and frames