20 June 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT) – A big colony of bees is feeling out their new home after being moved by a local beekeeper.
KSNT 27 News spoke with Tim Urich, owner of T Creek Bees & Honey, about the beehive relocation work that took place on Saturday, June 17. Urich said he got a call from Coachlight Village South in southeast Topeka about the presence of a large amount of bees in a tree.
After verifying that the insects were honeybees and not a look-a-like, Urich set off to inspect the tree. Upon arrival, he found the colony of bees had set up shop in a hollow limb on a maple tree sitting between two homes. Once Urich saw the scale of the hive, he called for backup, enlisting the help of local arborist Cliff Cormier with CNC Lawn & Tree to help with removing the bees.
“He came out and used his pole stock to trim the limb,” Urich said. “I gave him information on where I thought the hive was and we exposed the beehive gradually. I began cutting out the comb and transporting it into bee boxes.”
Urich said he lured the bees into a nearby box using pheromones. The entire process lasted hours with Urich leaving the bees alone and returning the following day to see if the colony had moved into the box. The procedure didn’t go completely to plan though as Urich was unable to find the colony’s queen bee.
“We looked and looked and looked for the queen,” Urich said.
Urich said that the queen could have been smashed or drowned in the large amount of nectar in the hive during the move or was simply not present when the move happened. This, combined with the movement of the colony to Urich’s property, left the honeybees agitated. But the loss of the queen isn’t necessarily a fatal loss of a colony for honeybees.
Urich’s solution to the problem was to introduce a new queen to the colony. This ‘re-queening’ process took time as the colony was gradually allowed to get used to their new ruler while she was safely secured in a cage, but it eventually ended in success. As it happens, the new queen was captured by Urich after she was found buzzing around KSNT 27 News’ station earlier this year with her own honeybee colony. The queen’s old colony then merged with the new honeybees, resulting in an even larger group of the insects.
A healthy honeybee colony that loses its queen will resort to making a new queen with its larvae or create emergency queen cells, according to Urich. The new queens will hatch from their cells and go on a mating flight before returning to the hive to lay eggs.
In the aftermath of the move, Urich said the “massive colony” was one of the largest he’s ever had to move. He filled up four five-gallon buckets with honeycombs collected from the hive and encountered large quantities of nectar when he started digging in to the hollow tree limb.
Urich said he manages around 160 hives, each containing around 40,000-60,000 honeybees. He has 40 scattered around his 10-acre property and partners with local landowners to house the others. Each hive can produce 90 to 130 pounds of honey per year which Urich turns into products his business sells in partnerships with local groups.
This recent colony move also highlights an important issue for Urich.
“Bigger picture though, we want property owners to call a beekeeper before they call an exterminator because these bees can be salvaged,” Urich said. “We don’t wanna spray ’em with chemicals. Almost always we can get them out of a structure or a tree.”
Urich encourages people to buy local honey products as well to support Kansas business owners and to contact local beekeepers if they need to have a hive removed safely. You can learn more about T Creek Bees & Honey by clicking here or going to their Facebook.