The Bee Adventure: Part Three

Yesterday we had three more hives removed that had taken over our house and yard. This is the third time we’ve had to have bees removed, so we are becoming more and more comfortable around them. However, we want to remove the weird bathroom from the deck as well as a dead mango tree that had been taken over by vines and bees. Also, we would get bumped a few times by them and Britton had been stung on the neck, so we were finally ready to deal with the bees (again).

IMG_4645 IMG_4648 Bedroom hive, bathroom hive

We had thought about trying to take them out ourselves, but we just weren’t quite to that level yet. So we called up Enrique again and he came the same day! He said he would take two of the hives that were in the house, but not the one in the tree because they were fully African (all bees in the tropics now are somewhat Africanized but some are interbred with domestic honeybees). Those in the tree, he said, he would have to kill.
Monster bee tree
Monster tree covered in vines had the African bees

So we have now had a total of seven! huge hives removed from this property! I know they say that the bee population has been declining, but definitely not here on our wild property it seems. We would love to keep bees (somewhere other than in our living space) but we just are not to that point yet. I did ask Enrique if we could take back a hive some time in the future and he said yes. He said he has about 70 hives on his finca in Añasco! He also knows quite a lot about agriculture and we may use his services in that too!

There are quite a few lost bees still swirling around right now, but hopefully that won’t be too long and we can start on the next steps. In the mean time we are enjoying our literally home-made honey.

IMG_4653

Because we are getting more and more comfortable (relative to the first time we found out there were bees in our house), we managed to video the process of Enrique taking out the hive this time and it is pretty fascinating (at least we thought so).

Enrique’s Spanish was a little difficult for me to understand, but I think I got the gist of it. I am still trying to pick up all the nuances of Puerto Rican Spanish because it is quite different from the Spanish spoken in Colorado. Britton doesn’t know the difference, but he is learning too! When Enrique warned him “No venga” Britton smartly asked me what that meant and now probably won’t forget that that means not to come close -especially when there are angry bees flying about. lol

 

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2 thoughts on “The Bee Adventure: Part Three

  1. Leslie

    I am so afraid of bees I don’t think I could have stood there and video taped. You guys are brave!! I admire your Spanish Cassie, you sound very fluent!!!

    Now do the bees damage the wood? Any issues with comejen in the house?

    Reply
  2. Britton

    Hi Leslie!

    I think we are getting more and more comfortable being around bees. It doesn’t seem that they sting as much as you’d think. He didn’t even use the smoker. The bees don’t do any damage to the wood, they simply crawl into any hole they can find and start making wax/honey.

    Amazingly enough we haven’t seen any signs of termites in the house. It is all treated wood, which is supposed to help with that and it apparently works. The wood overall is in excellent shape for being a 20 year old structure that has been abandoned for ~12-15years. Had someone been living in it and keeping up on some regular maintenance (paint/stain) I don’t think there would be much of an issue.

    I also admire Cassie’s Spanish. I couldn’t communicate much with Enrique except to point at things…lol.

    Reply

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