I love it when I can help remove bees from places where they aren’t wanted. Ceilings, walls, and floors are the usual places, and they require cutting things open and hours of hard, sweaty, sticky work. But when I was called to remove bees from an olive tree, I wasn’t quite sure what to do. I looked into doing a trap out and thought that would be the way to go. And then a few days later I was asked to remove bees from a mulberry tree. So while watching videos on YouTube on how to do the trap out, I came across the forced abscond method, which I decided to try with the mulberry tree. Before I did either of these, I went through the different options available with the homeowners, including the option to exterminate, which I never like to do, but know that sometimes it is the only option. I’m thankful that they both chose to save the bees. So here is what happened with the Tale of Two Trees… it has a much happier ending than Dicken’s tale.

When I was called to check out these bees in a beautiful olive tree in Central Phoenix, I wasn’t sure I would know what to do. I had read how other people had handled bees in trees, but I just thought the homeowners would not want to wait the few weeks that a trap out takes. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised that they chose to save them.

1. Locate the main entrance
2. Look for all other entrances/exits and close up with something the bees cant remove or eat through (steel wool, foam, plastic, etc.) This will take a few days to complete once the entrance is close because the bees may find exits you didn’t see initially.
3. Place a steel mesh cone with only a 1/2 inch opening over the entrance so that the bees can get out but not go back in. Secure this with screws or nails and stuff steel wool or plastic around it to seal it.
4. Get a hive box with drawn out comb and anything else to lure them (lemongrass oil, queen pheromone, sugar water sprayed on the foundation) and set it so that the cone end is very near the hive entrance.
5. Make sure bees are coming out only from the cone and that they aren’t going back in. leave it there for a day or two and come back to monitor progress and make sure there is no alternate entrance for them. If so, seal it.
6. Continue to visit the hive every few days until you see bees staying in the hive. Place a brood frame in there so they can either make a queen or at the very least, begin to care for the brood. This is a big draw for them. Also they will need to have open cells to put all the food stores they are foraging for.
7. After several more days, check the hive and the activity in and around the cone. You should be seeing bees going in and out of the hive carrying pollen. They will also likely have made queen cells if the brood frame had eggs.
8. If the queen does not emerge after a week or two, you can let the queens hatch or place a queen in a push-in cage. This will really cement that this is their new home.
9. At this point, if you see no bees coming out of the cone you can remove it and seal up the entrance with foam or anything else that can prevent bees from moving in again. Now you can safely move the hive to another location.

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