Step Into my World

[Jefroka]

As some of you may know, I am a beekeeper and I specialize in honeybee removal.

I do this 10 and a half months of the year, removing bees and relocating the hives to my bee yards and others.

Thought I would share some pictures. Hope you find them interesting.


...Jefroka

 

[Utahraptor]

woo I am impressed. Seems like you have some iron nerves, since you're making that smiling face with that bee-covered branch in your hands!

How did you get into beekeeping? What do you do with the colonies in your bee yards?

 

[reptastic]

cool job man i would be too nervous to do that but it look really interesting. when you move the hives do the bees just automatically follow?

 

[JohnMatthew]

Very cool stuff! There are a few apiarists around here and I've toyed with the idea of starting up a colony but always seem to put it off. As utahraptor asked, how did you break into beekeeping? It seems like a very interesting and rewarding occupation - especially if you like honey :-D .

 

[Jefroka]

I have been in the pest control field for more than twenty yrs. Because honeybees build enormous nests with lots of honey, to successfully remove them such as in the void space of a building all contents of the hive must be removed.

It just made sense to me if I had to access the void space anyway, why not remove them live? That is the path I took. Really it didn't take much to twist my arm to begin this journey. Once someone does a little research into their fascinating world its hard not to fall in love with them.

Everyone is always concerned with the sting aspect of beekeeping but honestly once you have some understanding of their ways you find out quickly their intention is to only sting as a last resort. They die when they sting, so they really don't want to sting.

Most of my stings are accidental ones such as where I'm reaching for a tool that has a bee on it and I scrunch her by mistake, well she scrunches right back!

I take some honey, enjoy eating it, just about every day and I sell it also.

As for moving them, that is done after darkness has set in or before daylight when they are not flying.


Glad y'all like the pics, I will continue to post some more if you like.


...Jefroka

 

[nemo66]

defiantly post more. awesome pics. when i was younger my dad had sort of a farm and we kept bees for quite awhile. we had about 15 or so boxes. one day we drove out to the hives to check on them and they swarmed us. i manged to get back to the truck quickly enough but my dad got 36 stings. aparintly they had been "Africanized " and they african bees took over the hives. and that was the end of our bee keeping hobby lol

 

[Jefroka]

defiantly post more. awesome pics. when i was younger my dad had sort of a farm and we kept bees for quite awhile. we had about 15 or so boxes. one day we drove out to the hives to check on them and they swarmed us. i manged to get back to the truck quickly enough but my dad got 36 stings. aparintly they had been "Africanized " and they african bees took over the hives. and that was the end of our bee keeping hobby lol

What y'all probably had was a hybrid of European and Africanized. The first generation can be quite wicked, but the evilness is apparently weeded out in the 2nd to 3rd generation.

There are many who actually keep africanized bees, they are not the monster that people make them out to be.

Every now and again I run across some aggressive Europeans and russian bees are known to be quite pissy at times.

Solution to mean bees is to requeen them. If its a huge colony, the divide and conquer method of splitting them three times and requeening each new colony works wonders.

Sometimes bees can be moody because of pressure/weather changes. I don't requeen right away. I give the bees four to five chances to prove their true colors. Sometimes the mean attitude disappears altogether and there are reasons why this ocurrs.



...Jefroka

 

[Jefroka]

More pics


...Jefroka

 

[nemo66]

Awsome pics. After our bees went crazy Ive been kinda turnd off to the whole idea of bee keeping but this makes me want to get back into it lol
they are amazing creatures.

 

[BOOZER]

thats really cool, but do you guys remember back in i think the 80's when everyone was reporting that the AFRICAN BEES ARE COMING!!!!! like they were gonna take over the whole U.S. and start killing folks off??! and people panicked hahaha too much.

cool pics!

 

[Jefroka]

thats really cool, but do you guys remember back in i think the 80's when everyone was reporting that the AFRICAN BEES ARE COMING!!!!! like they were gonna take over the whole U.S. and start killing folks off??! and people panicked hahaha too much.

cool pics!

Media hype!


...Jefroka

 

[Beazer]

Just came across this lol. That stuffs awesome. Yeah I am from AZ and I guess supposedly all of our honey bees are africanized. But I've never been attacked out hiking. Pretty simple, just dont piss em off, lol. So seriously though, have you ever made Mead (or is it spelled meed?) the honey liquor stuff. Its awesome if you mix it with tea lol.

-Jon DeLong

 

[TheTeguGurl]

:lol: you have nerves of steel... man everytime i see a bee I freal out, but then again im alirgic to them really bad! have to carry a bee kit with me everywhere! kottoos to you dude :app

 

[Jefroka]

Jon, I have not made mead but have a friend that I helped become a beekeeper that does make it. He gives me a bottle whenever he makes a batch.

Its good stuff!

I've been making videos the last three months or so of my removals.

This seems to be the most popular one: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jliuw-OWxSQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jliuw-OWxSQ</a><!-- m -->

Y'all have a good one.


...Jefroka aka JP the beeman

 

[JohnMatthew]

Awesome video man, I couldn't believe how many bees you kept scooping out of there! After you got the queen and put her in the box did the rest of the bees just follow her on their own? How long did that take?

John

 

[Jefroka]

The whole thing took about an hour. Once I got her caged and placed into the hive box, they soon followed.

I did have to smoke some of them off of the vehicle, but there was a point when they oriented to the set up and it was all she wrote from there.

This swarm likely had around 12-14,000 bees in it.


...Jefroka

 

[laurarfl]

That is pretty amazing stuff. I LOVED the pics!

 

[Guest]

Do you give your tegu honey. They are known to get into bees nests in the wild. That last picture on the first set is great. It is making me hungry.

 

[Jefroka]

Do you give your tegu honey. They are known to get into bees nests in the wild. That last picture on the first set is great. It is making me hungry.

I have offered mine honey and brood comb but he was not interested.


...Jefroka

 

[ashesc212]

Wow, that's some cool stuff. A bit scary though!