Bee Rescue Hotline

If you're like me - perish the thought! ;-) - you sometimes have a swarm of bees take up residence on your property. I know that a lot of you have real property, but I just have the ol' tract home lot and the bees build in weird places anyway, like the compost bin. Anyway, if you live in the Los Angeles area and you have a swarm of easily-accessible bees that need to be removed, you can call the Los Angeles Bee Rescue Hotline and they'll send someone out to relocate them. http://beehuman.blogspot.com/2010/02/bee-rescue-hotline.html (I haven't tried this, but I have written down the number and stuck it on the 'fridge.)

As for the bees in this picture, a swarm in the compost bin is almost an annual event. I just leave the lid off and they go away. They are incredibly docile at this stage. I just lifted off the lid and leaned it up against the bin and the bees didn't care. By the time the sun went down they had moved on.

We have a DG Member who is an Urban Bee Keeper. You can probably get a hold of her at the Beekeeping forum here at DG. I can't remember her user name, but she is in the LA area.
Swarms are very docile unless you try to get too close to their queen. I have a series of photos I took of a swarm that landed out here in the corner of my yard on a tree limb. I was able to get with in inches to take photos. Just don't move too fast, and don't wear dark colors. Their only natural enemy is the brown and black bears. That's why bee keepers wear white.
Swarms will usually move on all by themselves within a day or so. Unless they find a place they really like. They have been known to live under mobile homes, in attics and inside walls of houses. You need to make sure that all openings are sealed shut. If one bee can get inside they may have to tear off part of your wall to get rid of the hive. You'd want the wax and honey removed too.
Still, when approaching any bees, be cautious. The Africanized Bee is moving into urban areas. It seems they like the steady food and water supply. They are not gentle even when swarming. If you enter their "zone", you will be attacked.
Thanks for this timely reminder. This is the time of year I start getting all kinds of calls from people who want DH to take their swarm. He doesn't do that. They might have some bug his bees don't already have.
Sorry Kelli, DH is a commercial bee keeper, and this stuff rubs off on ya, after 30 years or so.
Bees probably found your compost bin a nice warm place for our cold, rainy, windy weather. The bees don't like to go out much when the temps go below about 60-65 degrees, so they might hang around for a day or two or three.
WIB!
SW

WIB = walk in bees? (Just kidding)

Says "Walks in Water". LOL! I can take a joke. : - )
Say, Kelli (aka Walks in Water), do the swarms really come back every year to your compost bin? It makes me wonder where the Momma Hive is?
Walk In Beauty!
SingingWolf

Almost every year since they first started coming. I think it's been four different times now. I'm guessing that someone around here has a hive but I don't know for sure or could even guess who that would be.

WalksInWater,
They can fly for miles when they swarm. They usually hop on the prevailing wind for an assist. No telling where they are coming from. Just be cautious, it's going to get worse in the future.
Normally bees can fly from 3 to about 5 miles from their hive when foraging for nectar or water.
Sorry, another factoid slipped out.
WIB!
SW

That is interesting. I didn't know how far they would fly.

Usually they fly about three miles from the hive. At least they don't place them any closer than that to one another. Fierce competition for some of those bee locations once the bees have been released from pollination.
Since all the housing developments started growing, there are fewer places to put bees to make honey on the native wildflowers and plants. Bee keepers are territorial about their locations and have been known to get into turf wars when other beekeepers encroach on their territory. That can ruin it for everyone. Especially we they don't take care of their bees. Bees are kind of like cattle, all they need is some water and some range and they do just fine. LOL!
Bees are fascinating.
Say, is that swarm still hanging out in your composting bin? They huddle together to keep warm.
Got to go for now.
WIB!
SW

No, the swarm is gone. That was a couple weeks ago that I took the picture.

DH says you did the right thing by opening it up, Kelly WIW. He says it looks like they were starting to build the wax honey comb. Once they do that and the Queen starts producing brood (bee larvae), they have a new home. He says it would be perfect habitat for them with that small opening for the bees to enter and exit the compost bin. Not to mention the warmth of the composting materials. Glad they've moved on. : - )
WIB!
SW

They had started a comb. It was about the size of half of a slice of bread. The cells were empty.

We had to have a hive that settled in our owl box destroyed. The guy who did it couldn't get at them to get them out. He said they were really good bees - they had filled that box with honey in a short time - and were very gentle. It was sad to us both. We keep an eye on the box now so we can catch them right away if it happens again. We often have a lot of bees in the summer because of our pond.

Yep, DH saw that comb on the lid, and said you'd caught it just in time, Kelli.
KC, if you want a Bee Hive, talk to DH, otherwise, you'll have to open up that nesting box from time to time, which sounds like a pain. Did you keep the honey?
You might want to set up a decoy box for the bees. Then maybe the owls will take up residence in their nesting box?
Just a thought.
WIB!
SW

Gosh, no, we don't want a hive. We have enough bees and I don't want a place to invite the bad ones. The honey couldn't be saved because he had to kill the bees. If we had the box on a pulley (the way I wanted it :-)) he could have taken the bees and saved the honey. I understood why DH didn't do the pulley - the ground underneath the tree is unstable and he didn't have anyone to help him, but it makes things awkward now.

I thought your DH was the pulley King! I know how it is with DH's though. Bees can be messy, and they make it hard to get your work along the pond done.
Too bad about the honey, but for future reference you could use cheese cloth and strain out the bees as long as whatever they used to kill the bees was non toxic. Either way it has to be removed or it will draw ants and smell bad.
WIB!
SW