December, 2017

Sunday 17 December 2017

Today I witnessed the most magnificent process of the removal of thousands and thousands of bees from my water meter.

Before I begin let me take you back to February 2017 when unbeknown to me I had a swarm of bees living in my water meter. Now this is on the far side of my property which I don’t regularly go to or check up on, so I had no idea they had nested in there. One day the Water Corporation visited my home to take a reading and obviously couldn’t get near the meter, so instead of informing me or knocking on my door that day (which I was home) they continued to destroy and murder ALL the bees and destroy their hive with chemicals!

ALL dead and semi cleaned out of the water meter and dumped on a piece of cardboard in the hot sun, honey dripping all over the drive way.

Much to my horror, I discovered this when my partner came over that night and asked why I had honey sitting on my bins?? WTF!

To say I was angry was an understatement. I spent weeks chasing up and writing to the Water Corporation to rectify this problem and demanding answers as to why they had killed all my bees with chemicals without notifying me.

So…some 9 months later and I discovered that my colony of bees have been hard at it again. Not wanting for them to be destroyed again by the over zealous and destructive Water Corporation Company I rang a local bee removalist who kindly came around and carefully and calmly removed the complete hive and rehoused nearly all of it into a bee box, along with all the bees.

Standing and watching this process was fascinating however first off, a little note – do not stand around watching with short sleeves and hair down.  They could smell my freshly washed hair and continued to fly around my head which sent me into a state of “arrg its a bee” no matter how calm I attempted to remain I just did not want to get bitten and they just kept annoying me.

Then I got stung on my cheek – ow – and subsequently dropped my phone on the pavement out of reaction to attempting to get the bee off me. I immediately dowsed it with Apple Cider Vinegar. Determined not to miss out on any of this process and the opportunity to grab some magnificent pics, I covered my complete head with a bandanna and went back out. Again they came to attack me…ugh  what now!

I ran inside, after fighting of the one or two pescky bee’s determined to hang off me and quickly looked up natural bee repellents.  I proceeded to cover my arms and face with coconut oil with cinnamon essential oils in it and again ventured back outside.  Again, they started to come near me.  UGH..I was getting quite frustrated when I could actually see the bee removalist Ash very calmly working away already, bare hands and all doing his thing.  I went back into the garage and found a reasonable size piece of flyscreen that I popped over my head and pegged together with clothes pegs. I must have looked a site however I didn’t care. I was now protected from swarming bees and I could get close enough and watch the whole process unfold at last.

Some 3 hours later and the whole hives were successfully and carefully removed from the meter and most of it was rehoused into a new box and their new home.  Ash was really excited as he was hoping to find the Queen Bee. He said, she’s really smart and mostly hides and keeps finding her way to the bottom.  Given that their were thousands and thousands of bees in the box, he thought maybe she might already have been transferred into his box.  He said, I’ve got a feeling she’s hiding in that corner and indicated to me which corner. I ducked inside for a quick moment only to miss the moment Ash found the Queen Bee and managed to capture her. She will go into the new box now for a couple days and then be released.

The little smoking pot drawing the bees away from the meter box and into their new home and away from the cones so Ash could get to them was a fascinating process to see.  If anyone had to have a hive removed I would certainly recommend Ash and I hope to hear one day soon that he has turned it into a flourishing business because what he does is absolutely invaluable and is certainly my preferred option in the future rather than have the Water Corporation destroy hives and murder bees the way they do!.

Thanks Ash. I will be forever grateful for what you have done today. It’s made my weekend and the honey tastes incredible.