DIY METHOD OF HIVE REMOVAL (Without killing any bee)

The plan:

Over lunch a few days ago, I had a short discussion with my old pal, Peter Liang, about the various non-toxic ways of generating smoke to drive away the bees from my bathroom.

Peter suggested : "All those ways that you've listed on your blog to generate smoke are the foreigner's ways. Why don't you try something local? Try joss sticks instead.”

I laughed at his suggestion when I thought of those skinny, foot-long ones used by the Chinese at temples. It would take too many sticks and would require me to replace them throughout the day. Anyway, who knows if bees would react to incense smoke?

But when Peter pointed out that there are giant joss sticks used for traditional Chinese prayers, I figured he may be on to something.

Unlike mosquito coils, joss sticks do not contain poisonous chemicals that kills or dazes the bees. The giant joss sticks would also last longer than mosquito coils so I wont have the problem of going into the room to replace the source of smoke.

So I went to an incense shop at Block 24 Sin Ming Road and was pleasantly surprised that they sell joss sticks that are as long as baseball bats.

Each incense stick is about 1.2m long and has a diameter of 2cm. It is designed to smoulder for 12 hours continuously. Each pack of 10 sticks costs $8.50.

Those of you who live overseas should be able to get such incense sticks at your nearest Chinatown or just ask around at your nearest Chinese temple for help.

I figured that there ought to be enough smoke by burning 2 sticks each session. The pack of joss sticks will hence last 60 hours.

So let's see if those bees can bear being smoked continuously for 2 1/2 days.

Here is a picture of the hive at 10am this morning.

(Click on the picture to see a close-up view)

The procedure:

These are the steps that I took today:

1. Early this morning, I informed my immediate neighbours to close their windows and to refrain from going outdoors. I did not want to pass my bee problem to them.

2. At 10am, I took a brick from my garden and put it right below the beehive. The brick, which had several holes for the ends of the incense sticks to be poked in, is heavy enough to be a stable base.

3. In order for the smoke to have maximum effect, I closed all of the windows in my toilet except one so that the bees could escape through it.

4. After lighting the incense sticks, I quickly placed them into the holes in the brick and left the room.

The sticks were lighted before I went into the bathroom.

It really takes quite a few minutes to get the the tips of large incense sticks to start burning, so it wont be a good idea to be doing that in the same room as the bees.

Once the bees detect smoke, they'll begin to fly around in confusion. Do you really want them buzzing madly around you, as you are frantically trying get the other sticks lighted?

5. Then, I closed the door behind me to let the smoke to build up inside the bathroom.


The result:

When I returned home at 4.30pm, I was dismayed to find that one of the 3 sticks of incense had stopped smouldering. The remaining 2 incense sticks continued to produce fragrant sandalwood smoke.

So 6 ½ hours after the incense sticks were lit, half of the colony still remained at the hive. The bees had eaten up so much of the honey that the white honeycomb structure on the top right side of the hive was exposed. Refer to the picture (below) taken at 4.30pm.

(Click on the picture to see a close-up view)

So it is true that smoke does cause the bees to instinctively gorge themselves with honey once they get smoked. It is their natural response to the perceived threat that their hive is about to get burned. The bees would eat as much as they can before flying away to establish a hive elsewhere.

When I checked again at 6.30pm, all of the bees had left!

The entire colony of bees had completely vacated their honeycomb structure in less than 8 1/2 hours and they managed to migrate to their new hive before sunset of the same day.

Heck, the bees had left even before I could complete burning my 12 hours long joss sticks.

I had expected the process of chasing the bees away to take a few days and so I was jubilant that it was all over in less than half a day.

The remainder of the abandoned honeycomb structure is shown in the picture below. As you can see from the photo, my bathroom was completely devoid of bees by 6.30pm. WooHoo!

The bees left very little honey to waste. The tiny bits of honey, that remained at the bottom of the deep cells, showed up as the brown bits in the photo below. Note that the purse-shaped honeycomb structure is exceedingly light for its size.

Front view of the complete honeycomb structure

Top view of the honeycomb that connects with the ceiling board

Follow up:

- After chipping out the whole honeycomb structure from my ceiling board, I sprayed the rough patch on the ceiling board with lots of insecticide to prevent the bees from returning tomorrow.

- Will paint over that area tomorrow so that the bees will not be able to latch on to that rough surface to form a new nest at the same spot again.


Thoughts:

I'm really happy with this solution because:

+ Not even a single bee was harmed or killed.

+ All of the bees left peacefully within the same day.

+ No one was injured.

+ The risk of a fire breaking out is very low with the use of large joss sticks.

+ I did not have to risk bodily harm by entering the room repeatedly to add burning materials in order to keep the smoke going continuously.

+ I spent S$ 8.50 to resolve a problem that would otherwise have cost me hundreds of dollars to engage the services of pest exterminators.

+ This is truly a win-win outcome for the bees and I.

+ This is a very simple method - Just light up the incense before you go to work and when you come home, the bees would be gone.

+ If I were to do it again, I'd start smoking the bees earlier at around 8.30am so that they have more time to complete their evacuation, ie. before the sun sets.

But, if you start the smoking process too late into the morning or afternoon, the bees may not be able to complete their migration by sundown. That might result in the colony being split or the bees might have to suffer a night in the smoky environment.


Conclusion:

Hmmmm, now that the bees are gone, what shall I do with the remaining 7 giant sticks of unused incense sticks?

Do share, with as many people as possible, this method of chasing away newly formed beehives.

Currently, the de-facto method of beehive removal in Singapore is by chemical extermination. And the pest exterminators will tell you, as a matter of fact, that there is no other choice but to spray deadly chemicals onto those bees while they are back at their hive.

That is not true now that we know of a more humane way to deal with the bees.

Help to save thousands of honey bees from unnecessary death.

Bees do have an important role in our ecosystem.

Disclaimer : There is always an inherent danger when dealing with wild insects like bees. Readers who choose to use the above method shall do so at their own risk. The author will not be liable for any damages or injury resulting from the use or abuse of the above methodology.

The bee's behaviour

Over the last 6 days, I've continued to use my bathroom despite the bee's presence. I've been careful not to make loud noises or sudden movements. Even the noise generated by the flushing of the cistern did not faze those bees.

I was particularly careful not to accidentally step or crush any of them as the dead bee would release a chemical that would trigger the rest of the bees to attack blindly.

Those bees have been pretty tolerant of me even though I carry out my toilet activities just 3 to 4 meters from their hive. I guess they realise that they are the guests. There was only an instance when a guard bee flew in front of me to warn me away as I was showering. I backed away and that bee figured out that I was not a threat to them. The overwhelming majority of the time, the bees pretty much left me alone when I brush my teeth and 'do my business' immediately below their hive.

Here are some observations that I've noticed:

1. Timing

The hive begins to get active from about 8.30am when the bees will actively fly in and out as they collect nectar. Throughout the day, the bees will continue to be busy with their repeated trips. Once it gets dark, the bees will all huddle together in the nest and there'd be no further bees in flight. At night, the the hive appears to be about 20% larger than in the day as many of the bees that forage of honey return.

On a few occasions, during the interval after sunset but before the sky turns completely dark, the bees did show amusing behaviour. When I switched on the tungsten bulb in my bathroom, 4 to 5 bees would fly from the hive towards the light source and they kept bumping into the bulb. Perhaps they thought that the bulb was the sun. Yet, once the sky turns dark outside, even when that same bulb is switched on, those bees would not react that way.

2. Weather

When it rained during the day, all of the bees would remain clustered together in their hive and none of them fly inside the bathroom.

3. Hive activity

I set up my birding telescope to observe the nest and it appears that the hive can be separated into 2 parts.

Refer to the picture below and imagine it to be divided into thirds.

In general, the bees cling on to each others back and are almost always oriented with their heads pointing upwards.

a. Top third of hive :

The bees in this zone have it tough, especially those at the perimeter of the hive and the ceiling board.

Their role is to latch on to the ceiling board with their claws and mandibles to provide stability for the nest. Other bees will then latch on to them so they basically have to bear the weight of other bees below them too.

I made it a point to follow a few of those bees, and they kept that extended position for up to 5 hours per session. Usually, those bees would release their holds only when there are enough bees around them so that they can safely let go without causing any structural weakness. When they are finally relieved of their duty, they'd be absolutely exhausted and cannot even crawl properly.

Meanwhile, some larger bees would, on occasion, come by and use its antenna to tap at the former's back.

One interesting feature of the bees here is that new some bees that attempt to cling on to the ceiling would first try to use their claws and mandibles to gain a grip to secure themselves to the ceiling board. Since the ceiling is painted over, the surface is smooth so it is difficult to get a grip. Should the bee fail to find a secure foothold, it would then extend its proboscis (long tube-like tongue) and lick at the ceiling. Soon after, the same bee was able to gain a secure foothold. I suspect that they were spreading their honey onto the smooth surface so that once the honey has dried out, the surface would become rough enough to be usable.

Besides securing themselves to the ceiling, some of those bees were seen slowly tearing the paint away with their mandibles.


b. Bottom 2/3 of hive :

This is where some returning bees would land and burrow into the mass of bees. Oftentimes, there would be some bees that would emerge from the crowd to the surface and they tend to appear extremely tired.

Quotations from pest exterminators

Received a few replies from the pest exterminators.

All 5 companies would spray the hive with chemicals to ensure a quick death to the bees.

I'm disappointed that none of their staff would remove the hive without killing the bees.

The lowest quotation was from Clean Solutions (Tel: 64710880) whose quote was $100 for the job. The others quoted as high as $250 for the job.

Clean Solutions is one of the 2 pest exterminators recommended by National Parks and is one of the contractors for Town Councils.

The sales rep, Mr Yew, who replied my call was very professional and was genuinely concerned for my family's safety. He even followed up with a call the next day to to ask about the status of the hive.

List of Pest Control companies in Sg

Called the N. Parks hotline this morning and was greeted by a cheery receptionist.

Apparently, they do not know of any beekeepers in Singapore but the receptionist did help by giving me the names and contact numbers of 2 pest controllers.

I called both those companies up, but the relevant staff were not available then.

Both companies have yet to return my call so I'm emailing some other pest control firms in this online list of pest control companies in Singapore.

Non-toxic sources to generate smoke

I was considering using mosquito coils to smoke the bees away, but a reader who had a somewhat similar experience wrote in the comment's section of the previous post that some of the bees would become disoriented and may fall to the floor. Those bees might sting your foot if you step on them. That got me thinking about using non-toxic sources to generate smoke in order to chase the bees away.

Here are some extracts from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beekeeping

Smoker

Bee smoker with heat shield and hook

Smoke is the beekeeper's third line of defense. Most beekeepers use a "smoker" — a device designed to generate smoke from the incomplete combustion of various fuels. Smoke calms bees; it initiates a feeding response in anticipation of possible hive abandonment due to fire. Smoke also masks alarm pheromones released by guard bees or when bees are squashed in an inspection. The ensuing confusion creates an opportunity for the beekeeper to open the hive and work without triggering a defensive reaction. In addition, when a bee consumes honey the bee's abdomen distends, supposedly making it difficult to make the necessary flexes to sting, though this has not been tested scientifically.

Smoke is of questionable use with a swarm, because swarms do not have honey stores to feed on in response. Usually smoke is not needed, since swarms tend to be less defensive, as they have no stores to defend, and a fresh swarm will have fed well from the hive.

Many types of fuel can be used in a smoker as long as it is natural and not contaminated with harmful substances. These fuels include hessian, pine needles, corrugated cardboard, and mostly rotten or punky wood. Some beekeeping supply sources also sell commercial fuels like pulped paper and compressed cotton, or even aerosol cans of smoke.

Some bee keepers are using "liquid smoke" as a safer, more convenient, alternative. It is a water-based solution that is sprayed onto the bees from a plastic spray bottle.

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Smoke them bees away

I sought advice from my birding and nature-lover friends through some of the nature related forums.

KCtsang advised me to smoke the bees away. Apparently, bees dislike smoky environments.

What he said makes sense in view of this video footage of how professionals in India smoke bees away:

So I may just try closing all the windows in the toilet and light a few mosquito coils continuously for a few days next week. Let's see if the bees will leave.

However, do note the hilarious situation this Japanese monk got himself into as he tried a DIY solution at beehive removal.

A monk tried to burn a bees nest with a bamboo stick lit with fire.
The bees didn't quite like that and attacked the monk causing him to flee and drop the bamboo stick.
The fire from the bamboo spread throughout his shrine and left behind it 130 sq meters of ash.
The monk suffered burns but as you can see is still alive.

(Source : http://www.dannychoo.com/detail/mac/eng/image/7362/Bees+and+Fire+attack+Monk.html )

A beehive in my bathroom

This is the second day since my maid brought my attention to a beehive that has formed on my bathroom's ceiling board.

The hive is currently about the size of 2-3 adult fists. Refer to the picture on the left.

I've been happily oblivious to the nest's formation since I tend to use that bathroom only early in the morning and late in the evening. During those times, the beehive is exceedingly silent and inactive. All of the bees would be clumped together in a solid mass and none of them would be in flight.

These honey bees are the ones found at sugar cane drinks stalls and are quite harmless unless provoked. They will attack if the feel that their nest is threatened.

So far, over the last 2 days, I've been using the bathroom warily. Thankfully, the bees are not yet agitated by my routine toilet activities. With the nest just 2-3m directly over my head whenever I 'sit on my throne', I cannot help but think of the phrase 'sitting duck'.

Here's a 52 second video of that hive when it is active. The image is slight shaky as I was holding the camera to my telescope.

I suspect that this colony of bees were attracted by my flowering passion fruit vines in my garden. In fact, just several months ago, we reported another beehive that formed on a tree along the road, in front of our house, to National Parks Board. They promptly sent in the Pestbusters and got that nest removed.

There is a global shortage of bees is expected to lead to a crisis in crops production and higher food prices. Read about the bee's Colony Collapse Disorder here.

Since today is a Sunday, I'll wait till tomorrow to seek advice from National Parks Board again to see if there are any registered beekeepers in Singapore. A quick search on the Internet did not reveal any beekeepers in this country.

Apparently beekeepers would be very happy to remove the nest for the public. Their prized find is the rare Queen Bee, which is critical to sustain a captive colony in order to repeatedly harvest honey from them.

It'll be a terrible waste to kill off these bees should I call in the pest exterminators.

Anyone knows of a way or someone who can remove such nests without killing those bees?