Thousands of bees removed from Aston Manor house

THE “South African Bee Man”, Jan Oberholzer, came to the rescue of two problematic bee hives at an Aston Manor house on October 5.

He removed the hives of around 60 000 bees that had moved into a trailer and an electricity box about two years ago.

The honeycomb from the nest that was in the trailer filled one and a half black plastic bags and the nest in the electricity box two and a half bags. The combined weight of all the honey was almost 20kg.

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“The hive in the electricity box was the biggest problem and I was stung even before I started. I realised these bees would have to be handled with care to make sure animals and neighbours did not get affected in the process. It took me two hours to smoke out the bees so they were calmer to get them into a bee trap box,” said Oberholzer.

“We told the owner we had to remove the hives because the bees were getting too aggressive. His only condition was for us to keep the bees alive. We got all the bees out and trapped them in bee boxes to set them free in a veld.”

Unfortunately the next day Oberholzer found the boxes had been opened by someone who thought they could steal the honey. The bees fled because of the disturbance.

Oberholzer’s advice to residents is to prevent bees from moving in by making sure they get rid of possible nesting spaces such as tyres, upside-down pots or cracks in walls and fishponds.

The owners of the house from where the bees were removed were advised to get rid of the trailer and electricity box to prevent the bees from coming back.

“I have 20 years experience with bee removal and have seen that swarms of bees get more aggressive the older they get. It is best to get them removed as soon as possible. Just as a lot of wild animals, bees also have different temperaments and no swarm is the same, so always be careful around bee hives.”