Photo By Tommie Horton | A beehive estimated to contain as many as 40,000 honeybees is removed from a wall of...... read more read more
ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. – A group of contractors recently noticed several honeybees constantly going in and out of a small hole in the wall of vacant Bldg. 272.
When Zach Porter, 78th Civil Engineering construction management, learned about the beehive, he was very anxious to help with the situation.
“I’ve always been interested in honeybees and becoming a beekeeper,” said Porter. “I’ve just never had the opportunity to work with and learn from an experienced beekeeper.”
In order to get to the hive, boards would first have to be removed from the outside wall of the battered facility that is currently being demolished.
Porter tried removing the hive himself, but it didn’t go very well. He learned quickly that approaching bees wearing blue jeans and a dark color shirt isn’t a good idea.
“I pried one board off the wall and had about 1,000 bees on my head,” Porter laughed. He said the bees saw him as a predator dressed the way he was.
After calling around base in search of assistance, Porter met Joe Money, 562nd Aircraft Maintenance Squadron aircraft overhaul systems worker, and Alejandero Rodriguez, 402nd Aircraft maintenance Squadron aircraft electrician.
Rodriguez, who is now going into his second year of beekeeping, was the most experienced of the group.
“I’ve gone into these cut-out situations before,” Rodriguez explained. “Whenever you go into something like this, you have to expect the unexpected.”
The three Robins employees all showed up to the site on March 23, decked out in white beekeeper suits complete with veils and sting resistant gloves.
Rodriguez took the front line when the group of aspiring beekeepers cut out a 36- by 20-inch section of wall and uncovered the unexpected.
The cut-out revealed a very active hive with multiple layers of honeycomb filling the entire section of wall that went about 6 inches deep. From the start, they had no way of knowing how many layers were inside the opening, but it turned out to be three.
After assessing the situation, Rodriguez knelt in front of the hive, took a knife and carefully began cutting the honeycomb out in sections.
“You have to stay focused when you’re removing a hive like this,” said Rodriguez. “If you happen to squeeze, kill or hurt one of them, it could cause a bee to send off a pheromone alerting the others that they are under attack,” he said.
They used smoke to mask the bees’ pheromone which helps to keep them all calm.
Rodriguez spent two and a half hours slicing sections from the beehive that he estimates had been there for at least three years. Porter and Money examined each of the sections before placing them into boxes. By their calculations, there could have been as many as 40,000 bees in the hive.
The bee-grabbing trio was not able to physically locate the queen, but there were signs that she may have been in one of the boxes. They captured so many that they just weren’t able to see her.
“Part of our plan was to cut out combs that had one- to four-day old eggs and place those combs into boxes with bees so that they could grow their own queen from those larva,” Rodriguez, who is going to keep the hives, said. “We ended up making five hives out of the one.”
As for any remaining stragglers left behind, Rodriguez said that at some point they will either go find another home or just die out.
| Date Taken: | 04.04.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 04.04.2018 11:44 |
| Story ID: | 271731 |
| Location: | GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 278 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Honey, it’s time to move, by Tommie Horton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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