going professional: new name and website

Since my hobby really started to take off, I was experiencing a great financial drain. People underestimate the money/effort involved with keeping bees. EG: each box for bees costs roughly $100, and that is unpainted and with the labor to assemble/paint it. People are generally not willing to pay for removal. For them bees are a nuisance. I had to do something about not going underwater too much. My other job (IT related) is still bringing in the money. I setup a new company in order to have it better organised, insured etc. That's why I am proud to announce that from now on, all services etc, will be provided by bees and beyond inc . Last 2 jobs were done under the new name, and the postings can be found here and here

dual standards...

I got a call today.
Somebody has bought a piece of property and is building a house on it.
They discovered "bees" in a cliff in the ground.
Since Bees normally don't house in ground, I am thinking about yellow jackets and not bees.
I look up the address with google maps: 30 miles, 45 minutes one way trip.
I explain that I am willing to come, inspect and make an offer. But in case they don't want to pay for the removal, I will be charging them $25 (for 90 minutes of my time /gas money). And they don't want to do that.
"we will see for another week if we can find someone else who will take them, if not, we will put some kind of bomb on them"

What are people's thoughts exactly about the value of bees ?
Enough for a beekeeper to work for free, but otherwise disposable if you have to pay to get it removed ?

easy swarm catch

Somebody in Camarillo called today about a bee swarm.
They were hanging from a bird bath and was an easy catch
[CLICK ON PICTURES FOR ENLARGEMENT]

This was an easy one!

I was able to catch most of them, maybe 20 or so flew up in the air.
I had to close down the box to keep the majority in.
Drove home with the box in the back, suit on, visor down and windows open.
I wonder what the police officer was thinking when he saw me driving like that...

New bee swarm moved into an existing box

Last week I recovered an almost empty hive on one of the yards where I keep bees.
They clearly weren't in good shape and were reduced to one frame of brood and some honey.
I start feeding them with some sugar water in the hope to not lose the girls.
I thought they were doing better, with lots of activity.
But then suddenly today we heard a load noise, a swarm decided they were moving in.
I had no protective clothing on, 3 in my hair, 2 walking over my forehead when I made these movies:
didn't get stung once.

2012 season has started

Got 3 calls about swarm catches yesterday

Will try and write up article about swarm catches soon.

Danny

10 million bees deaths reported in Florida

Those of us who love sweet delicious honey have good reason to be concerned, as over 10 million bee deaths were recently reported in Florida. article

chimney bees ventura

Today i got a call from ventura for bees in a chimney. 2 Story home and I am afraid of heights so big fun (NOT) WHen i looked down in the 2 story chimney I saw this:

The comb started about 2 ft from the top of the chimney, so my hands could only reach the top of the comb. I used a rake to "catch" the comb when i was cutting it with my other hand. To my surprise it worked and i got 95% of the comb out, only real small parts fell down. Will pick them up tomorrow evening.

*UPDATE*
I went to collect the bees today, since it will rain tomorrow. I was only able to take one picture before my camera froze on my with a cryptic "change the battery pack" (but I tried all 4 fully charged batteries, still the same error) [CLICK ON PICTURE FOR ENLARGED VIEW]

I left the nuc box strapped on top of the chimney so the bees could regroup. That certainly worked since almost all bees were inside the box!