Hi Folks,
There is an urgent need to relocate a beehive (pic attached) from an ongoing construction site in Saudi Arabia. As is evident from the pic, it happens to be on a coral bed above the seawater. Shall be grateful for suggestions.
Thanks in anticipation.
Swarming honey bees are normally very docile. Years ago we collected a swarm in a big cardboard box and transported them in a mini van to a beekeeper who adopted them.
This bee colony (family of bees) is doing a natural transition to an (as yet unknown) cavity which their scout bees will (by flying)locate and transfer to within a day or so. The bees are held together by their perception of their mother (the queen bee, slightly larger) who is somewhere in the group. You can let the process proceed, or if you can contact a beekeeper they might be interested to come and collect the family into a hive (house for bees), let them settle for a few hours, then relocate to another location. If you have no plan to maintain them, just let them "do their thing" and they likely will be OK.
I don't think smoking off the bees is a good idea, just bring a large enough box that can contain the whole thing as it is, and use protective equipment when handling it.
"relocate a bee hive" is a different challenge than addressed in this discussion, which is really "collect or move a swarm". Good guidance to "relocate a bee hive" (move an occupied bee's house, without losing the bees (who are oriented to the original location and may, after the move, return to the vacant spot, and die), is to move the hive " less than 2 metres (so flying bees will find it again) or more than 2 km or miles, (so flying bees will not recognize the new location, so will re-orient to the mew one). km or miles? depends on complexity of the environment: complex, 2 km may work. uniform? use 2 miles.
For the purpose of collecting a swarm of bees there is no need of smoke. They are not aggressive in this situation. The swarm can be placed in a cardboard box, or a burlap sack. Better to wear cloth gloves.
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