If you peer at that photo, you’ll see Rob, aka the bee rescuer, who has sent one more followup, after noting the intense interest in the previous chapter of the saga. If you’re just joining us: Monday’s storm brought down trees in Lincoln Park – and one had been home to a wild beehive, found in pieces on the ground, as shown here. The bees were rescued by a West Seattleite who usually keeps bees elsewhere; after he posted an update in comments here, we asked if he would share more info/photos, which he did here – and now, today, even more in a new chapter, involving a box, vacuum, and tunnel:
On Friday, the roads were clear and Thanksgiving well-celebrated, so I was able to fetch some better bee-keeping equipment for the “rescued” Lincoln Park hive. I repacked the hive into the new box, along with fresh comb foundation frames:
I improvised a “bee vacuum” to suck up bees who had chosen to fly around the room instead of letting themselves be moved into their new home:
This was just a plastic gallon jug mounted on a dust-buster, with a mesh bag covering the vacuum intake, so the bees wouldn’t get sucked in. I could then pour these stragglers back into the hive and seal it up.
In order to keep the hive indoors in its weakened state, I constructed a sealed cardboard gangway out a gap in a window:
The girls have found their passageway, but are still not too enthusiastic about how cold it is outdoors. If this configuration proves stable, I intend to keep them like this until perhaps April at which time, they’ll should be ready to move back outside. We’ll see how it goes. For more pictures and video, visit Trileigh‘s “Bees in the Bedroom” collection on Flickr.
The top photo, by the way, not only shows Rob through the window, but that’s also the outside view of the bee box and “tunnel” entry.
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