“I have bee keepers at my house, If you are interested let me know” This was the text message I received Tuesday afternoon from Donnie Reis a resident on the 100 block of 3rd Street.
I of course responded with “Be right there” and headed over to Donnie’s home. I was greeted at the door by Melissa Cairns, owner of Cairns Toys who prompted the text message from Donnie. According to the residents of the historic First Street downtown home, several days ago a large swarm of honey bees “blackened the sky” above their home and entered a hole in a closed off entrance to their garage. They could hear the bees humming from behind the boarded up entry door and immediately called in the bee keepers.
As I approached the garage in the back of their house you could hear the hum of the bees and see the bee keepers in action. The boarded up doorway exposed a large moving mass of bees clinging to 6 clearly defined vertical honeycombs.
Local bee keepers, Dwight Wells and Tony Rimkus both responded to the call from Cairns to remove the bees safely. As the two gentlemen diligently worked to remove the bees from their temporary home in the Cairn’s garage and place them into the wooden racks they brought with them, we were both entertained and educated by the duo. Mr. Rimkus, who served for 6 years as the Miami County Bee Inspector stated that he rarely goes out on calls like this anymore as his back has been giving him problems. Both Rimkus and Wells are members of the Miami Valley Beekeepers Association and respond to calls from Miami County residents who are beset by bee swarms or encampments.
The bees at the Cairns home were the docile “Italian” honey bee and because they had only been there a few days, did not have much of a chance to build their honey stores. Rather, the bees were still diligently building their six sided hexagon store house for pollen, nectar and of course the larvae as deposited by the queen bee. Mr. Rimkus described Ohio’s honey bees as “highly endangered” thanks to the reduction in Ohio’s natural flora. “Think about these gated communities in Ohio totally devoid of clover, dandelion, and flowering plants thanks to modern weed-kill methods” he continued “the bees just have to go elsewhere to seek out a renewable and reliable food supply”. When I asked for him to elaborate, Mr. Rimkus stated “Unlike other pollinating insects, honey bees are both selective and efficient. They don’t hop from a rose to a clover, to a maple blossom, they farm selectively from one dandelion to the next, sometimes bringing back pollen and sometimes nectar, all based on the needs of the hive”.
Equally as insightful about honey bees was Mr. Wells who was very eager to find the queen bee in this hive and capture her. Carefully carving off a section of the honeycomb, Wells found the queen bee hiding inside. He stated that once the queen bee was placed into their bee racks she would release a special pheromone that would tell the rest of the bees from the hive to come join her. Sure enough, within 15 minutes we could see a steady stream of bees marching from the doorway down into the man made racks that the queen now called home.
It was obvious that the bee keepers were very much interested in removing the bees without killing them, often taking a sting or two from the insects as they brushed them gently from their occupied space into their new home. They even went to the trouble of carefully strapping the honeycombs that this hive already created into the boxes, fully respecting the bees’ engineering efforts.
With Tipp City being a “flower city” there could be an inordinate amount of bee activity. Recently Mr. Wells was called to the Rogers home on Broadway to remove a hive located in the eaves of their home which contained over 20,000 bees. Bees can build encampments of 20,000+ bees in a matter of 15-20 minutes, begin laying eggs in a day and stockpiling honey in 3-4 days all responding to the wishes of the queen bee who directs all movement, engineering and reproduction for the hive.
If your home or garage becomes infested with bees, before you call an exterminator please get in contact with local bee keepers. They know how to quickly, safely and humanely remove bees from the most difficult of locations. For more information, or to report a bee hive you can email Dwight Wells at dwells85@woh.rr.com
We hope you enjoy the photos and video that were taken at no small risk to this editor. Thank you also to the Cairns who called us to the scene of the action and to the fascinating bee keepers Mr. Wells and Mr. Rimkus. To find out more about Honey Bees visit Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_bee or if you would like to learn more about the honey bees in Miami County, Ohio visit http://mvbeekeepers.org/default.aspx
