If it was me, I'd google beekeeper association and give a local beekeeper a call. I think they have a way of encouraging the bees to take up residence in a new hive.

To replay a recently posted riddle on Sailnet:
Do you know what kind of bees make milk?
No? Give up?


BOO-BEES

 

Dave
I know you probably have already dreaded the thought of , but I think you will need to do some form of mast hauling. If nothing else to have it lifted so that you can clean the mess that eventually falls down to the bottom. You might be able to shoot up thru one of your openings with one of the wasp sprays or a bug bomb to kill them but then you still have the cleanup of the fallen corpses. Not a fun project. SORRY
Peter

 

two things come to mind...and I am a beekeeper...

1st make sure they are honey bees...
2nd you must move the queen to get the rest to move.

Anything less will lead to aggravation on both parties.

If they are not honeybees, pesticide is your best shot. But you will be left with corpses.

 

I keep bees also, another thing you need to watch out for is to make sure the comb is also removed once the bees are gone they will no longer be regulating the temp of the "hive" and all the wax will melt and start to run. Combine this with the honey in the combs and you get a very big mess that attracts a lot of bugs.

 

I was a commercial beekeeper and I don't know of a "simple" solution to your problem. I'm assuming that the boat doesn't leave the dock much? Bees (if they are honey bees) have very precise geographic zeroing ability and even moving the hive a few feet messes them up tremendously. There is a saying about moving a hive "less than a foot or more than a mile". Meaning that if you move the entrance less than a foot they will figure it out and if you move it a mile or so they will immediately re-orient themselves when they exit the hive. The only two suggestions I can make are: 1. Climb the mast at night (when everyone is home) and spray them. There will be a LOT of dead bees at the base of the mast to vacuum up, and possibly a fair amount of honey (12 lbs/gallon) wherever the colony set up housekeeping in the mast (it may not be right at the top, could be quite a ways down). After the bees are dead, if there is honey in the cells other insects (yellow jackets) will probably go in and take it so that might not be a problem (other than the yellow jackets). 2. Move the boat during a hot sunny day, half of the bees will be out foraging. Do this a couple more times and the hive will "probably" die out eventually. The down side to this is that you won't be well liked at the places you "leave" several thousand bees which will quickly adopt another mast as home and won't be in good humor at losing their home and queen (in other words kiss your friends at the marina goodbye).
Wish there was a good third option, but I can't think of it.

 

If you live in an area where africanised bees are a possibility, you would be better off leaving this to a professional.

 

Many thanks for all who have offered advice, well educated advice at that. There is a local pest control company that will get them out but it is pretty clear that I will have to pull the mast and figure out the best approach to cleaning the interior. The moral of the story is that I need to use the boat more frequently. She is tucked up a river in Ft. Lauderdale where I put her in June to ride out hurricane season since I wasn't able to bring her north this year. I used to think birds perching in the rigging were a big problem. I would trade the bees any day for birds. Thanks for you help one and all.

 

This thread is cool. Just demonstrates the awsome collection of experience among our members.

 

Well crafted titles attract buzz!



It really does! Made me wonder if there is some connection between sailing and beekeeping! However.... I would have chosen a more obvious title like: "Removing bee hive inside mast!". Believe it or not, I looked at the thread because I thought it was some new technique for sealing/lubricating Halyards! I also happen to like bees so I found it interesting. I assume the beekeepers did the same. While not as cute or clever, a more direct title might have attracted someone who suffered the same problem. Surely there must be others.

 

Couldn't you smoke them out? There are machines that make smoke safely.

The main question is, how much honey and mess are inside the mast, after the bees are gone. If they aren't honey bees then there won't be much to clean up.

 

Bubble- smoke won't drive them out, they just stick their heads in a cell to get away from the smoke and have a quick bite of honey, common misunderstanding.

 

lol sounds like some of my strange proplems,uhuhuhuh,you should get a experinced local bee keeper! a smoker sprinkled with ammonium nitrate will paralyze and eventually kill the bees if you keep it up,asuming that they haven't sealed off their colony from below inside the mast,now you can safely unstep your mast without you ,your neighbors or anyone else getting stung,after the resident bees are killed and the poisen smoke has disbursed[this smoke is highly toxic to humans too] the bee keeper can bring another colony[stand of bees]the new bees will rob all the honey from within your mast leaving only the comb/no longer sticky and gooy/ or you can just scrape out the honey filled comb by hand,a experinced bee keeper should know about the ammonium nitrate trick. btw another swarm of bees will later be attracted to the same site,maybe you can use a long lasting repellant,i don't know how practical any of this is but strange problems often require strange solutions

 

Can I get a grant to study this? The apparently strong relationship between beekeeping and sailing - who would have thunk it!

 

no doubt sailors are a strange bunch

 

Pull the mast and leave it underwater a few days.
You wanted to replace the wiring anyway.

 

I should have mentioned that it's possible to lure the bees (honeybees) out of the mast. Here's what you could do. You will need to attach a platform to the top of the mast, right next to where the bees are entering/leaving it. Probably one of those nice light radar mounts would be perfect. If you have no use for this after removing the bees, I could sure use one. Next you'll have to seal off any other way for them to get out of the mast. Then hoist a bee box, preferably with a full set of frames with some honey in them up to the radar mast (I have Furuno radar if there are options). After you get the box secured then run a flexible tube from the hole they are using in the mast to a hole drilled in the box so they have to go thru the box whenever they leave or return to the hive. Within a few days, maybe a week or two, they will get tired of going thru the beautiful new home you've provided them to the crummy, weird shaped place with the wires and lines going thru it and take up house keeping in the box (they'll move the queen and the rest will follow). At this point all you'll need to do is lower the box down (I'd advise doing this at night and being really, really careful) to the deck, take it to some nice place out in the country where there are lot's of flowers and bingo! your problem is solved (don't forget my, uh, your radar mount up there). This may seem like a lot of work, but think of the hundred thousand or so bees that will be thanking you (unless you drop the box while lowering it, then they are going to do everything in their power just to see you die an agonizing death). I've successfully done this exact same thing (except the part about being at the top of a 60' mast on a boat, the one I did was in a wall about 6' off the ground), so it's pretty much a guaranteed way to solve your
problem without involving the use of nasty pesticides)

 

Some people will say anything for a free radar bracket.

 

OK gues I'm the hard a$$

You're going up a 60 foot mast to lure the critters out. They are gonna sting you, and then you are gonna fall. Not a good scenario. Go up there plastic bag the masthead, cut loose with a synthetic pyrethroid fogger into the bag, and seal it. Nuke em, wait a couple of days and drop the mast to clean out the mess..

Being honeybees they are a non-native species. They are essentially livestock that have escaped to the wild. I know how everyone wants to love and protect the bees, but frankly, folks in Hawaii are turning out hundreds of queens a day and the loss of your hive in the mast is mimiscule compared to the annual loss from CCD.

Callous I know, but it isn't worth your life IMHO.

Let the flaming begin.

PS I too am impressed with the breadth of knowledge on this board.

 

As jrd suggested the most practical solution, or at least the best first step is to move the boat . The bees that leave will not find their way back and the hive will be weakened and die out.

Even if the bees have been in there for a while, it's unlikely that you will have more than about twenty pounds or so of material. The honey will eventually be robbed by other bees or wasps and you won't even notice the weight of the comb. Especially in a 48' cat.

In a few months, you will never know it happened. Someday when you pull the stick, you will have a little mess inside your mast but every mast that I've ever pulled that's been up for a number of years had messes in them anyway.
I'm sure that your mast is deck stepped so you won't have any problems below.

I really wouldn't worry about it unless you have other reasons to pull the mast. But even if you do pull the mast, you should move the boat around for a while first.

If your halyards get sticky, honey is water soluble.

 

ewoden has a good point when you work with honey bees you will get stung I do quite a bit (you build up immunity to the venom). More people think they are allergic to bee stings then actually are itching and swelling is a normal reaction restricted breathing is not. But when I work with them I'm 0 feet above the ground and know what to expect when I get a sting. Also it is true they are not a native species but I'm still very partial to them.

My advice is to get a pro to do it for you, even if it's an exterminator your health is worth more than that of the bees.

 

I suspect that if you move the boat, they will turn on you.

Be careful.

 

At 60' feet in the air they won't. Even if they are Africanized.
Frankly, they probably won't even know they are moving. When the workers fly off to forage, they won't be able to find their way back.

I definitely would not recommend anyone but a professional going up the mast to spray or mess with them at all. Even if they are regular European bees. But moving the boat is not a problem and again is the logical first step to prevent the bees from becoming more established and numerous without having to have any personal contact with stinging insects.

 

a lot depends on how long they have been established and how big and how much honey they have accumulated,a new colony with little honey aren't generally too mean [protective] and as someone mentioned before if you keep moving the boat during the day when most of the workers are afield you will eventually eradicate them [no new food/nector coming in] they will eventually starve out

 

Honey dissolves in water, hot water melts wax.
If you kill the bees, and get a hose with (hot) water up there, you can probably flush out everything that needs to go out.

sheesh,
where do you guys come up with this stuff...

beeswax starts to melt at 150 degrees F (this would scald most uncovered skin quite badly)....just how are you going to get water that hot, up 50' in the air...and keep it hot enough that it will melt and flush ANYWHERE...through a small hole in the mast...

all you are going to do is end up with some very POed bees and a mess...once they get riled, you will not be happy with the outcome...they are quite quick, and once one stings, the others will zero right in..

winches will not work well on waxed halyards so be careful if you use them to climb the mast and survive the mitigation....

YMMV

 

plz give us a update,i'm very curious about your odd problem?maybe u could put some little cups on your halyard,fresh honey and toast wouldn' be too bad

 

We've used mothballs in the boat, in the boom, in the lazarettes, to keep out critters including yellowjacket nests in the off season. The vapors from the stuff are toxic (nad leave a thin film that blocks rust) and nasty little critters tend to go away from them when they can. I'd suggest dropping a large can/box of mothballs inside the mast if you have any access (halyard exit, inspection pate, etc.) down below, and give it a week or two to see if the rising vapors either poison the bees or encourage them to leave on their own. Ideally you'd put the mothballs inside the masthead nearer the hive, but there's no way in hell I'd go aloft to visit a bee hive.

Pick your poison, literally, and bomb 'em out. Don't take any chance on "confronting" a hive, the odds are too high in their favor.

And if you use mothballs below in the off season? Make Real Damn Sure to open the boat and ventilate the boat before going below and trying to breath. Mothballs can be deadly when concentrations build up.

 

Late to the party - but better late than never! I don't know if hive collapse is a problem in FL, but it would seem a waste to kill them if there is an alternative. Also, honeybees may be non-native (you learn something every day), but I believe that they are vital to agriculture in the USA

From wikipedia: "It is estimated that one third of the human food supply depends on insect pollination, most of which is accomplished by bees, especially the domesticated European honey bee."

Seems like this is a place to start: Florida Beekeepers and Honeybee Removal

Fair winds!

 

The final outcome

I hired an exterminator who went to the mast head (fully suited up) and applied a fine white dust which I presume was toxic. It both drove bees out and killed the ones that remained behind.

The halyards that ran inside the mast (main, spinnaker and topping lift) were pretty gummed up which made me decide that I should pull the mast. So, last week the boat was hauled and the mast removed and rested on cradles. I had to cut an inspection hole in the top plate of the mast to get a good look inside. There was honey comb as far as the eye could see and as far as we could get an inspection camera in. Lots of head scratching about how to remove the now toxic honey and residue. Tried using long probes to scrape but that was pretty unsatisfactory and not feasible for the entire length of the mast. Finally, an internet search uncovered a pressure washer called a sewar jetter that worked perfectly. (Available at many equipment rental places.) It has a nozzle at the end of a 100' narrow diameter flexible high pressure hose. The jets on the nozzle are aimed backward in the rough shape of a partially opened umbrella so that when the thing is running at 1500 psi, it literally pulls the line down the mast and expels material behind it. I couldn't believe the amount of material that came out. There were several gallons of honey, lots of chunks of honey comb and thousands of dead bees.

While the mast was on the ground I had it inspected by a rigger who found that there were a couple of cracked stainless fittings and that the wire stays should be replaced. He pointed out that had the mast not been on the ground they wouldn't have had access to a damaged turnbuckle underneath the ProFurl drum. So, although the bee removal process is not something I would wish on anyone, it did result in a critical inspection and timely repair.

My thanks to everyone who chimed in on this topic. I felt badly about having to kill the bees since they did turn out to be honey bees but there was no practical way to remove the colony given its height above the deck. I have to say I'm rather proud of my adaptation of sewarr cleaning technology to this sticky problem.