At our home in brazoria county we have dewberries now. As you can see Sarah has been eating a few... 

bees running in to the new home, happy to have a brand bew hive. Rob will be picking them up in a few weeks to take them to the hill country.  No gloves needed  with these nice girls. 

Rob Frederick is a HCBA member who helped me remove his bees from the porch roof of his house. His clinic is Alief Animal Hospital.  He will be taking his bees to his place in the hill country. A great family to work for, really nice people. The queen is on the blue box. ready to be put in her hive. He held the box while I put her in during the removal and his whole family got to see her too while looking out the window by the front door. He really loves his bees and will be glad to know they are doing well tonight.

The first step in bee removal is smoking the bees, I use mesquite or cedar chips in my smoker. Most jobs with bees in the soffit space are done from below, however this building is being torn down, so I did it the easy way, lifting off the roof. This ensured safe capture of the queen.This Photo belongs with the 4-15 -10 group from the Axzo Nobel Chemical Plant job, I didnt click the last time obviously and it did not get published. See dads bees on the next entry now in their new home at my place in Alvin.   

Sarah got this great shot of the queen bee as we found her on the last scrap of plywood from the roof. Bees had been sitting calmly on it and Sarah noticed that. The queen would not walk right into the cage, but wanted to pose for her photo on my glove. She was re-united with her colony by 9 p.m. that night. They will get a super today,very nice bees. This is why daytime removal works best for me and the bees. By nightfall the entire colony unites in one place (the old nest site) ,and with the queen and 90% of the colony there the returning workers come to the cage. Sometimes a second queen is present if a swarm was preparing to leave and she is also drawn to the colony too. Working with the bees in this way guarantees their survival. Ask any member of the HCBA who has gotten bees or queen cells from me in the past, I save and re hive all bees I remove. Gus at Nawara Farm or Joan at Gundermann Farm + Stacy and Garret at Gundermann Acres,  would tell you the same, they benefit from the bees kept on the farms they own.   

The brood nest is carefully removed and stored with plenty of nurse bees on it for later installation in the hive. These werevery nice black bees, some old timers call 'em german bees. Germans were the first bees brought to u.s. mainland by man.

The first step in bee removal is smoking the bees, I use mesquite or cedar chips in my smoker. Most jobs with bees in the soffit space are done from below, however this building is being torn down, so I did it the easy way, lifting off the roof. This ensured safe capture of the queen.

Sarah C. took these photos and helped me with the removal. She is a HCBA member and friend. She used to work with my dad before he retired.

I had help from Sarah C. who is an engineer at this chemical Plant.  She took some great photos that I will post soon. The place of removal was the roof area of an old building in the back area of the plant. Some years ago when this place was Witco my dad was plant manager and then engineering manager untill he retired. Scotty would be glad to know his daughter safely removed bees from a building he once had an office in.  I miss my father and loved him very much.  I placed these bees alongside my bees from the heights at my Alvin place. These will never go to a farm, but stay in the Alvin apiary.