NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Tens of thousands of bees have been sucked out of a New Haven firehouse, where the insects moved into the attic, created a colony and made honey.
The honey bees swarmed in surreptitiously under an eave -- and created the colony just above the second story of Engine 16 on Lighthouse Road.
"They were actually making honey in the attic space," Assistant Fire Chief Ralph Black said.
It's unclear how long the bees were living at the firehouse. But, generally speaking, displaced from overcrowded colonies, swarms send out scouts to look for real estate, according to Dr. Kirby Stafford, the state's chief entomologist, who heads the Department of Entomology at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven.
Once they find a suitable spot, the bees -- fattened with food for their flight -- just buzz themselves in. Hive-less, they're relatively harmless, according to Stafford.
"The bees, they're full of honey. They're not defending a hive at that point. They're searching for a new home," Stafford said.
The bees can often go unnoticed for a long time, as they establish a new colony, where eggs are laid and food is made, Stafford said.
Mark Creighton, state bee inspector and beekeeper for the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, estimated that 30,000 to 35,000 bees lived at the firehouse. He made the estimate by volume, without officially weighing them. He removed about 25,000 of them on Tuesday night -- and planned on going back to get the remaining 10,000 Friday. An earlier estimate of 60,000 was too high.
The World Health Organization has declared the honey bee endangered, so there is great public awareness about the bees and many people are rethinking their approach to them. That's why a pest-control company refused to kill the bees for the fire department.
Creighton and another state worker gathered up the bees in a specially modified vacuum, which has a certain suction pressure, a padded circular cage, and ventilation so the bees would survive their transport.
They took the bees to the state's Lockwood Farm in Hamden, where the bees were put in a new hive body, which they can leave to pollinate apples, squash, pears and whatever vegetation is there.
"It looked like these guys had been up there for a year or two. It didn't look like they just arrived. That's for sure," Creighton said.
Honey bees aren't so anxious to sting because they die after plunging their barbed stinger into prey, Creighton said.
Although the insects were seen in some of the light fixtures on the top floor of the firehouse, they did not enter the firefighters' living space, according to Black.
And the story has a sweet ending, of course. The bees will probably be transferred to a commercial hive body, normally a white box, where they can build combs and make honey, which can be harvested and sold.
Copyright 2012 - The Hartford Courant, Conn.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
