Rescuing abandoned bees

Here are some photos of abandoned bee hives that a friend and I rescued.

5 Likes

2 Likes

The snakes probably kept the mice away.

2 Likes

2 Likes

Happy in their new home.

The bees thought the old farm house might make a better hive.

Those bees really needed to be rescued! Did you torch the old boxes?

1 Like

Yes we torched the old boxes.

1 Like

You did a good thing. Any idea how long they were in there? I’m surprised they survived as those hives looked awful.

There is an abandoned house down the street and some discarded hives in the yard that look just as bad as the ones you showed. The old man that lived there died about a year ago. Do you think bees can survive on their own that long? I may ignore the No Trespassing signs and check them out tomorrow.

1 Like

That’s a nice fat healthy looking garter snake. I used to have some as pets when I was a kid, fun little snakes. Those hives look awful. Is this your property?

1 Like

The bees where in pretty good shape. If you go to the abandoned house check for hives in the walls of the house or garage. I wouldn’t be surprised if they swarmed an moved into a near by structure.

1 Like

That’s a good idea, because winters here in Rochester, NY are pretty brutal. I may just take those abandoned hives and burn them to protect native bees too.

Did you get to rob any of the honey? We found 3 abandoned gives last week and just re homed them yesterday. Boxes were not in as bad as shape as yours even some still usable but some were awful. All three colonies probably had 75-90k bees and tons and tons of old dark musky rich honey , a gold mine for me!!

I left the honey for the bees.