stupid BEES update -- lip balm, and Q about the remaining bees?

[patandchickens]

I'm sorry, I don't usually post venting-type posts, but I have just HAD IT today...

... on top of two mysteriously dead chicks from my broody hen, and the vet bills on my periodically-going-on-a-hunger-strike cat nearing $1000 (verdict: it's either totally mental, or intestinal but inexplicable), there is now a WHOLE BIG BUZZING BUNCH of expletive-deleted HONEYBEES living in my attic, via a crack in the soffit. I do not, unfortunately, think it is a newly moved in swarm -- they appear to have enlarged the opening, and I think I just haven't noticed them before, it's somewhere I spend very little time b/c of so many mosquitoes on that side of the house. And I *have* been noticing an unusually large number of honeybees around this summer

I will pop up into the attic tonight for a peek, but it's at the extreme opposite side of the house from the access hatch and I do not want to be bonking my head on trusses and putting my feet through the ceiling drywall while running away from a suddenly enraged hive up there during daylight.

AARRRRGH.

If they were hornets or something like that, I would not hesitate (much) to just kill them... but honeybees, I'd feel real bad about nuking them plus I dunno as I want a bunch of honey left up there to cause problems.

I have left a phone message with a local beekeeper that the feedstore lady suggested as my best bet, but she was not at all sure that they did removals, so I may end up killing bees after all, either personally or via an overpriced exterminator, GAAAAH.

Also I have a vicious cold, as do the therefore very whiny kids, and I have to go buy $300 worth of cage wire to build an outdoor cat run for Mr. I Don't Think I'll Eat This Week (although he is eating at the *moment*), and the oldest horse is probably going to have to be euthanized before winter, and I am *never* going to get around to rebuilding the dangerously rotting back deck at this rate, and just generally AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGH.

Thank you, I can't say I feel *much* better now, but maybe somewhat

Pat

 

[Beekissed]

One more thing to do, Pat.....contact your local extension office to get a list of beeks who remove swarms. You will increase your chances of finding someone to do it that way. There are quite a few beeks who like to catch wild swarms and hive them.

Good luck! Maybe they will give you some of the honey when they remove the swarm.......

Sorry about your kitty and horse......

I had a house cat that started acting like that and it turned out to be renal difficulties. He had been eating too much store bought foods and hadn't hunted for his own for a long while. We turned him outside and resisted the urge to feed him. He turned it around within a week or so and started to fill out and gloss up again. I know there are low ash foods out there but I didn't want to mess up the natural order of things. Turns out he just really needed wild game for his diet. As long as we made sure he had ample opportunity to hunt and eat his own kills, he never had trouble with weight loss again.

 

[big brown horse]

My Mom had this problem, she had a honey bee specialist remove them. None had to be killed. I think the guy did it for free too.

 

[me&thegals]

What a week! We have nasty colds here, too, which just seems wrong somehow in the middle of summer and nonstop fruit and veggie intake.

Regarding the bees, can I beg you to wait? Try to find someone to remove them for you. Left alone, they shouldn't bother you and it would be a shame to kill them, seeing as how bees are struggling right now anyway. If you think they've been there for a while, maybe you could end up with some honey out of the deal

Good luck on the rest!

me&thegals

 

[miss_thenorth]

http://www.pestcontrolcanada.com/ontario Pest Control.htm

this is as far as I got--cuz I'mnot sure which town/city is nearest you.
Also this: http://ca.local.yahoo.com/details?i...2kgFa88vuCWgcKDm83qCUzRG3.i3.CRO1yr6Df7Dfz0bk.

When it rains it pours eh? sorry to hear about your horse, and your cat. Hope you all recover quickly from you colds.

 

[patandchickens]

Thanks guys, I am just having a really crappy day is all.

I do not know if we even HAVE extension agents, or anything like it, in Canada -- miss_thenorth, do you know? Thanks for the pest control links btw, I will explore that route if I have to, but I'd really rather find someone to take the bees away live, you know?

I think Mojo's (the cat's) problems are largely mental -- he clearly wants to be an outdoor cat, but the house is just 60' off a VERY busy VERY fast road and other cats around here do not have long lifespans, so to me that is the option of last resort if all else fails. I have been taking him on walks on a harness and leash 2x a day (yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh -- between him and one of the other cats, who has now decided that if Mo gets to go walkies then Fred should go walkies too, I am now spending upwards of an hour a day being towed around the yard by cats! <throws hands up in the air>) which has really perked him up. I built an aerial walkway across the kitchen this weekend, which is now the official Mo Bridge, and in the next week or two hope to have completed an outdoor run for them. So *hopefully* that will keep him happy enough to not get his innards all in a twist :/

Of course, the cat run is going to go right below where the STUPID BEES currently are... sigh

Pat, with a large uncomfortable ant bite now swelling up on my foot, and wishing the day would be over soon

 

[big brown horse]

Aww Pat, here

We had a barn cat named "Bubba Joe" and fell in love with him so we took him home to be our house cat. He got seriously depressed, wouldn't eat and sulked everywhere.

He went back to work at the barn and has been just fine since. (Had to leave him back in Houston, he is still a barn cat...and loves it.)

I put a harness on my cat (Scott) and he was so humiliated he wouldn't leave his under the bed hide out. It was so much fun!!! Sadistic, I know.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I wish we did have county extaneion agents--they sound wonderful. the closest thing we have, I think, is OMAFRA.--Ontario ministr of agriculture foods and rural affairs.

This is what I got when i typed in beekeeping in the website.

http://www.search.gov.on.ca/FSS/ProcessSearch.do?
could you open the 2nd link? that was for the beekeepers association, which would be my first attempt at trying to locate a beek near you who might be able to dismantle the hive.
When all else fails, University of Guelph si the most agriculture/animal etc oriented university around. You could probably try to locate a dept there and see what info they might have.

I really hope you can relocate the hive. Years ago, when I was a young one, I worked for an auction company and they were selling this warehouse and all the contents (bankruptcy liquidation). A section of one wall--an area of about 6x8' was all hive. I know my boss got ahold of someone to remove the hive--alive. That was in London, but also around 20 some years ago. There's got to be someone around who will move it.

do you have any orchards nearby? I know the ones around here will bring bees in for pollination from a local beek, so an orchard might be a place to start looking also. Just throwing thngs out there.

 

[Dace]

Oh Pat you are too funny. I am sorry you are having such a crappy day, but the way you tell the tale is certainly entertaining!

I can just picture you with two cats on leashes walking them around the yard

 

[2dream]

Sure am sorry you are having a crappy day. But sure am glad you decided to share it with us. I know crappy day for you but a laugh for us. I'm sorry, I know I should not be laughing at you but you are the one who told it funny. LOL

Good luck with finding someone to remove the bees. I know you really don't want to have to kill them. But then again you can't afford to leave them there either.

As for walking the cat. I once had a cat that the previous owner had declawed. I know. Awful. But I took the cat when she tired of it. (even more awful). He had never been outside before and since he was declawed I always used a leash. That was the darnedest cat. He hated grass. He would touch it lightly with his foot and then jump back like a snake had bit him. We always got the biggest kick out of watching him try to figure out what that green stuff was.

Hope the colds get better soon. Summer colds are the worst. It will be tomorrow soon and this day will be behind you.