Update on my bees in the water meter vault problem. Some women beekeeper said she would take the hive but then never showed up so it looks like its up to me. I hate to kill the bees but it looks like I have no choice. Out of curiosity I would like to salvage the honey and bees wax if possible without contaiminating them with poison. Some ideas I had. 1. Starve them out by blocking the entrance and waiting. But on another website some women said a bee has been traped behind her window shade for a week and is still alive, and thats without food or water, so the bees in the water meter vault probably have enough honey stored to hold out for quite a while, but I don't know if they need water too. That women beekeeper said she thought it would take five days for them to die if I just plugged the hole. 2. I was thinking about sticking the end of my unlite propane torch in the hole and filling the chamber with propane gas, maybe that would asphixiate them without poisoning the honey. 3, Another idea would be to stick a funnel in the opening and pouring ammonia or chlorox into the vault and hope the fumes would kill them. 4. Maybe get brave and put on two or three pairs of pants and a couple of sweatshirts and a heavy coat and gloves and put a mosquito net over my head and try opening up the cover and pull everything out myself and then put mothballs in the chamber to keep them from coming back. 5. Or forget trying to salvage the honey and bees wax and just get a can of wasp killer and empty it into the hole or use that sevin dust someone recommended. 6. Or last choice, put on all the protective stuff, open the chamber at night, and then stick a garden hose in it and flood the chamber, and hope they leave and don't come back and hope they don't sting me or anyone else the next day. 7. Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated.

Perhaps I can answer some of your questions. >>I noted BB's taking turns sitting in the opening and fanning their wings. Is the 'nest' over heated? Is there anything I can do to help them?I have never seen bumbles do that, I know honey bees do it, and it's very normal... I wouldn't be concerned. >>I witnessed a BB fly from the house with a very heavy load and fall directly to the cement walk.Again, honey bees constantly do house cleaning, there are always some bees dieing in the hive, also, sometimes dead larvae, like you mentioned, due to many reasons. I build some bumble boxes for these lovely critters...

Hi Tony, I'm in Innisfil Ontario north of Toronto near Barrie. Just around the corner is Dickey Bee Honey and another beekeeper is just south of here on the way to Bradford. Even our mayor is a beekeeper! I had a friend who had a couple hives as a hobby - and I've been to a bed and breakfast near Peterborough that is a honey farm - Hunter Farm. I watched Ruth centrifuge the honey. But what do you do with it all?? You'd have to sell it, and I don't want to compete business-wise with my neighbours. Although I do own and operate a grocery delivery business and have been asked for the unpasteurized honey, recommended for health. When my friend tried to turn his unpasteurized honey hobby into a business (we were in a government sponsored business start-up program), he ran into all sorts of problems - apparently he could sell the honey off his driveway or at a stall he himself operated, but ran into trouble trying to sell through a second party - other retailers. Have you any information on why this may be the case? And besides honey, can you make other products if you're a beekeeper - can one make honey 'sugar' for example? How can one differentiate honey from others? Is it worth keeping just a handful of hives or is that not cost-effective? Regarding what kind of wasps/hornets my 'bees' were - they had longer wings but not long narrow bodies. I assumed wasps all have dangly bits hanging off them and hornets are long and pointy and yellowjackets are tiny. Thats about all I thought I knew ;) Thanks for your replies! Lisa

Echoes: 1) Height or width of the overall house isn't very important for the average residential gardener. What -is- important is tube diameter and the presence of orienting marks for the bees, like colored straw tips, or patches of color, or a few straws sticking out further than the rest. These bees like irregular surfaces with lots of identifying marks. They can see blue, yellow, green, and black. 2) Ideal placement is where 1) it will get sun in the morning to help the bees warm up for flight and 2) It's protected from weather. I live in Seattle and place my bees on the south side of the house because they get the most sun there (7 hours during the warmer part of the day) Our storms in Seattle come in from the south, so that also means the houses are exposed to a lot of rain and wind, which 1) encourages them to disperse (fly away and not return to nest there.) and 2)creates great moist conditions for pollen mites. That was a bad idea last spring, which was cold and wet and windy. This year I'm placing some houses on the south side of the house and some on the east side to see which perform best. The east side gets five hours of sunlight during a colder part of the day. For the ones on the south side, if we're in for stormy weather, I have two options: 1) build a more protective roof over each house or 2) Take the entire house (bees and all) and put it in a bag in the fridge for about 24 hours. SARE's guide to Alternative Pollinators says you can do this for up to five days with no harm to the bees. We'll see how that idea works out. :-)