6th August 2010 Collect New Residents

Houghton Grange

I have been busy over the last couple of weeks and been a bit slow in updating.  Judith and I were asked to remove some bees from inside the roof at Houghton Grange, near St. Ives.  It is a listed building that is about to have some work done on it.  But they needed the bees removing first.  Luckily, there is scffolding all over the building so we had relatively easy access.  Although we could see the bees from inside, they could not be reached so we had the assisance of a couple of builders to remove the roof.

Removing the tiles.  All the tiles had to be kept to be replaced as this is a grade 2 listed building.

Sawing throught the planks below the tiles.

And here is the colony ready to be cut out of the roof.  Unfortunately there are no pictures of the actual operation as I was up to my neck in honey, wax and bees.  It took a couple of hours to cut the comb out and crimp it into a Hive 3 (empty since the last colony died out).

This was the roof space after the bees had been removed, just before the planks were replaced.

And finally the hive on the roof.  It was left there for a couple of days for the bees to get used to the new home before it was moved on the Sunday evening to Wood Green Animal Shelter.