- I've been stung up and down my body and my face, but I deserved that.

I'm upgrading my Nunchuck skills in this episode of "Charlie Bee."

Holy smokes.

With the guru of forced absconds - Now that'll drill through anything.

- We've got some seriously spicy bees to contend with.

Ouch.

- Lookie here.

- Ouch - I'd walk away if I were you.

- When I try out some ne insulated hives to cool them off - It's awesome.

- I found your mama.

- Who is for drinking?

- I am for drinking.

Don't try this at home.

This is a moment where they're like, gosh, I'm really glad I got a bee suit.

Ow, got stung by a bee.

- My name is Charlie Agar and I'm a beekeeper in the Texas Hill country.

They got me.

I help people with nuisance bee problems and rescue bees from sticky situations.

I think I got some bees on me.

With bee populations in decline, it's more important now than ever to save these bees.

(rock music) Oh!

Beekeeping has taken me all over the state of Texas and working with bees has given me the opportunity to meet some incredible people along the way.

I'm always learning, experiencing new things, and working hard.

Things can get a little crazy.

Ow, ow, ah.

But I love it.

(rock music) Oh yeah!

(rock music) Timber!

(rock music) This is just wild.

I love it.

I love it!

We're solving somebody's problem We're putting these bees to work where they're meant to work, somewhere safe and away from people.

This is what it's all about.

Retreat.

Woo!

(rock music) Suicide swarms, it's a fall swarm, tiny little swarm.

They don't have a great chance of overwintering, so they're lucky they met Charlie Bee today.

This frame's got wax on it, so they'll like that.

And I'm just going to kind of dislodge them from their current state and hopefully find big mama.

You know, you catch a swarm and you realize, "Oh man, I can get free bees."

And so it's a good gateway drug to bee removal.

And there's the queen.

I found her.

(rock music) Okay, so I got the queen.

What I'll probably do is find a weak hive and combine this queen with them.

(rock music) And then I'm just gonna place this here for the afternoon.

Once they start orienting, it'll go right in.

They'll smell mama.

(rock music) - When I first came up, they were not aggressive, they just defended a little bit, you know?

And then this little thing like closes, then they're locked in and then I can take them away.

I need more colonies.

So I'm gonna definitely make use of them.

Free bees, nothing better.

So here's the deal, I do forced absconds where I force bees out of situations that I can't cut in and get them trees, walls sometimes.

I have limited luck with it.

I have a lot of struggles.

So today I'm with an expert.

Stan Gore gonna show me how to do the forced abscond to get these bees out, hopefully get the queen, and come away with a hive.

There's the man.

How you doing Stan?

- How are you, man?

- Good to see you.

- Good to see you.

- Thanks for having us out.

- I'm excited to be here.

- So forced abscond, I need a schooling today, so.

- Well, let's do what we can.

You know, there's percentage, it can be good, it can be bad, but I'm hoping for successful and it usually works that way, but we'll see.

- Suit up.

- Let's go.

- Let's do this, brother.

- Awesome.

(rock music) I've done probably dozens, maybe hundreds of forced absconds.

And in this colony here in the tree back here we're going to, it looks like a fairly easy one.

Charlie and I, we're gonna be watching for that queen.

'Cause I love the bees and everything, but my concern is not the bees.

My concern is the queen.

You get the queen, you get the hive.

Okay, now that'll drill through anything.

(drill buzzes) - You ever seen a dead body?

Well, here we.

(Charlie laughs) Oh look, you got a frame hanging there.

- This catches the flying bees.

And I just put like a spray, a swarm commander, and what this is is duplicates queen pheromones.

So it catches them here instead of 20 feet up.

- So I've noticed you don't have a vacuum at the ready.

- I use them sometimes, but I do it a little different.

- Stan has a wealth of knowledge about absconds as well as some awesome new toys.

- This is a smoker, but you don't want to use this.

Why would that be, Charlie?

- It's too small.

(men laugh) - And this is a regular DeNance smoker and I love these, but this is my favorite.

And I call it the Bendex 5,000.

- Biggest bong I've ever seen.

- It's not really the name, but it's what came up to my mind - So what do you think we're gonna do here first, sir?

- Well, the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna drill a couple of holes.

So what I like to do is I like to drill one hole below and then I like to drill one hole above.

And what I'll do is I'll smoke the entrance just like a puff or two.

If you don't do this bottom, if you just do the top ones, you'll drive the bees down and sometimes they'll go all the way to the bottom and they'll stay down there.

- Right.

- So if you have a hole here and a hole here- - What kind of tree is this?

- You know, that's a one of those green leaf trees.

I'm sure someone will know.

- It's green tree with leaves on it.

What'd you call this?

- Bendex 5,000.

(country music) - Look at that.

Wow.

- Look Charlie.

- That is awesome, holy smokes.

I'm having flashbacks to college right now.

So I'll start right here.

- Yeah.

- All right.

Whoa.

Why do I not have a drill bit like this?

- You're into hollow, okay.

Just kind of room it out a little bit.

- Are we phrasing?

(drill buzzes) - And then drill like right up in here would be good.

(drill buzzes) No hollow.

- Not really.

- Okay, try a little lower.

- Okay.

(drill buzzes) - All right.

- Keep going down?

- Just to keep going down.

You're gonna hit it but I'm surprised you haven't already.

(drill buzzes) Lemme see this.

- Yeah, go for it.

(rock music) (drill buzzes) It's just a matter of finding it - Yep.

(droll buzzes) Bees have a tendency to go up when they smell smoke.

So after drilling a couple of vent holes for the smoker, Stan sprays oil on the tree that prevents the bees from going up and out of reach.

- And bees hate it, but it doesn't hurt 'em.

We kinda smoke at the entrance.

- And what are we doing here?

We're talking to the guard bees, right?

- Yeah, the guard bees, you know they see the smoke and so they go inside and they communicate that, hey, the tree's on fire.

That's enough.

Just a little bit And so now we're gonna do the the smoking technique.

You're gonna smoke in here first - Okay.

- Yeah, ram it in there.

- Crazy.

(rock music) - Just crank away.

(rock music) All right, that's good.

- Here they come.

- I love seeing pollen coming in - Yeah, that's a good sign.

I think this is a small hive, so this is making it easy.

That's great.

- Okay, so let's smoke a little more.

- Where's Willie Nelson when you need 'em?

- How do you like that crank?

- That's really awesome.

I need one of these.

Do you fill up the holes when you're done?

- Yeah, I'll show you.

- Okay.

- Okay, and I'm plugging these up with three quarter inch dowling and it kind of keeps the smoke in there.

Then I'm gonna use the blower and this will tell us where the holes are.

- Okay.

Boy, this saves a lot of wrist action.

Phrasing.

Look at that big stick bug.

It's got a baby on its back.

What is that?

- He's coming right there.

- That's bigger than a stick bug And it's got a baby on its back.

- Is that the queen?

(men laugh) - That's a big queen, man.

- Yeah.

I've never seen one of those but I'm loving them.

- That's a fat bug.

- So what I like to do, I like to smoke that and just look up and see if there's any other hole up there.

- Okay, problem is we have a massive hole down below that we gotta plug, phrasing.

There's a big hole in the back.

- Yeah.

- And they're really gathered here.

- Okay, we'll just kinda wait a little bit.

Let them get used to that smoke.

Matter of fact, we can almost drive 'em down now.

- Yeah, that'd probably be smart I like to earn my keep.

What I'm seeing is that this is an orchestrated process with lots of little steps.

How long does it usually take, Stan, a typical forced abscond?

- I've had 'em as soon as like 45 seconds.

- 45 seconds is good.

- And I've had 'em take as long as eight hours.

- Eight hours.

- Patience, think people always ask me, "How do you get the queen so much?"

I say, "Well, I pray a lot but I also take my time."

- I'm probably the least patient person on the planet.

This is new to me.

I would be more aggressively smoking and that'd probably be killing bees.

So, this is good for me to learn We're looking high and low.

All the places we'd usually find her majesty but no sign of a queen.

- They sure like that frame.

- They do.

- We need to spray up there.

- The bees are starting to move their way up the tree.

So we're spraying more essential oils to keep them down.

Nothing's flying around.

I don't see anything on branches I keep looking but, they're really attracted to that frame.

They're going all around that.

So hopefully she's in there.

Definitely feeling like w may not find this queen today.

- All right, every so often, when the bees are filling up the frame, we'll shake 'em off 'cause they're balling up pretty good right here.

She could be in there.

Go ahead and pull it back up.

And then I'm looking for her in here.

(country music) - Lots of pretty girl flying, but none with a crown.

(country music) They're pretty well behaved so that's good.

(country music) Ah, come on lady.

(country music) Ah.

(country music) Best laid plans of mice and men.

I think it's time to call it.

I learned a lot about patience today.

Negative, we didn't find the queen.

Positive, I learned something new.

I hear the term forced abscond, I think I gotta be forceful, you know?

And this is more gentle and patient.

- Man, it's been a blast.

- It's been a blast.

Hey, I got an idea.

- What's that?

- I got one in New Braunfels I could use a hand with.

You game?

- Ah, absolutely.

- All right.

- I'll be there.

- Let's square our coordinates and come on down.

- All right, you name the time, I'll be there.

- Oh man, we had a great day with Stan.

He is so methodical about what he does.

He's so thoughtful about it and he's actually very patient with myself, other beekeepers, and trying to, you know, share ideas.

We didn't have any luck, right?

So it happens.

But at one thing I really learned from working with Stan is patience.

Not so much a forced abscond, but like a gentle abscond.

(country music) All right, y'all got a busy day today here at Charlie Bee Company.

Got a special visitor coming from Apimaye, my friend Korhan can teach us all about this product.

It's the talk of th beekeeping community right now.

It's really cool.

The bad news is old Charlie's plain hurt today.

So I brought my friend, Kim Stanley, the heavy metal homesteader, she's here.

She's gonna be my hands.

She's a tough lady.

We are gonna dive into this product.

I'm just psyched to learn all about it.

It's gonna be cool.

Hey Korhan.

- Charlie.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice meeting you too.

- Welcome to Texas.

- Thank you.

Good to be here.

- This is a little taste of Texas for you.

- Ooh.

- Just to beat the allergies while you're here, so.

- Thank you so much.

- I reached out to Korhan 'cause Stan has all these specialty hives out in his bee yard.

I wanted to learn how they work.

- It's an insulated beehive that really helps the bees survive through the harsh winters or summers like we have in Arizona or in Texas.

- And you've grown up with beekeeping.

- We've always been around bees.

We lived in an apartment when we were a kid and we had a colony in our like balcony.

My dad was of course working in the university's area and he also had his personal bees.

So whenever he came home he had that bee smell.

You know what I'm talking about?

It is like the mixture of honey and propolis and bees wax and smoke.

It's that like really sweet smell.

So growing up with that smell, it is just like that is home.

He's back so I like it.

I like being around bees because it just feels like family.

- That's awesome.

Do those look familiar?

- I know those boxes.

(Charlie laughs) - Hey.

- Hey, heavy metal.

What's up?

How are you?

- Good.

- Good to see you.

Good to see you.

This is Korhan.

- Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Kim is gonna be doing all the hard work today.

- Strong like bull.

(Korhan laughs) - I'm gonna order you around if you're okay.

- That's okay.

- 'Cause I just, I'm not supposed to lift anything.

- Don't lift anything.

I will yell at you.

- Let's grab these.

- Don't touch it.

- Work fascinates me.

I can watch people do it all day.

Oh, look at that.

These are sort of just ready to go out of the box, huh?

- Correct.

- Cool.

- So that's just a cooler.

It's just a beer cooler.

- Well, I would much rather have you put the bees in it.

- Yeah, okay, okay.

That is cool.

- Do they just pop open?

(country music) - Like that?

- Split them open.

You don't have to baby my product.

- Oh, there we go, okay.

- Whoa, look at that.

Oh man, this feels like Christmas morning.

This like changes the mood of the bees.

Happy, unhappy.

- Not necessarily.

It's got four settings.

That one is for the queen.

- That's locked in, but breathing.

- And that one.

- And then that's queen excluder.

- Exactly.

- I can put a regular feeder in this.

- This one comes with the feeder.

This is just a super.

You haven't even seen my product.

- Oh my goodness, all right, Somebody pinch me.

That is awesome.

- As I said, everything latches together.

Oh, so this is my insulated top cover.

These are the top feeders.

So you don't need an extra feeder.

And this is my seven frame hive with two different colored entrances.

So you can actually have two colonies in there.

- I'll do little three frame nucs.

- If you do three frame nucs, this is my division board.

Three settings.

If you have a queenless colony, this is not gonna let the bees go through from one side to another, but it' will let the pheromones of the queen go through.

So after a few days you can remove this division board and you can have a much stronger colony.

- Seems like there's so much engineering involved in this.

- We are actually a family of engineers and beekeepers and scientists.

So in fact, if you're actually carrying your colonies, you can see that you can have more up if you have black bear problems.

And if you want to really tie down your product, this is where you can put this.

- Thankfully, we don't have black bear, we have redneck problems.

Back a truck into my hives, that's the worst thing that's ever happened.

All right, well, we've got a removal right nearby.

- Okay.

- If you're game for it.

Are you ready to get into some bees?

- Oh, definitely.

- Sounds like a plan.

- All right, cool.

Look at me watching work.

- Get the- - Still don't do it.

They're just stitches internal.

(Charlie laughs) (country music) I'm gonna get used to this.

Everybody does the work for me.

That's fine.

(rock music) Team, team, team Apimaye.

(rock music).

All right, here they are.

(rock music) What I do would be just grab a hold of a comb.

- Like the one down in here.

- We can shake the bees into this bucket.

Has a little bit of brood, nice and gentle, bit by bit.

- Just try not to mush anybody in case it's hurt.

- It's a little tiny hive.

- It is tiny.

- So- - Just one.

- You wanna hand me that lid.

- Okay, you're gonna shake it in there.

- I'll just give it a good firm shake.

This is where she'll be.

Sometimes I'll spot the queen down in here.

But I think the best way would be to, I'll give it a good shake.

(upbeat music) (bees buzz) - Let's still make sure that she's not here.

- Yep.

(upbeat music) - Right there!

- You got her?

Oh yeah, look at that.

- I'm a master finding the queen bee.

Hope I didn't mush her.

Okay, she's in there now.

- Mushed one but- - But it's not her.

- Hopefully not.

- Look what I did.

(Charlie laughs) - Good job.

- This is huge for me.

I found your mama.

She's very sweet.

- I think we're just gonna vacuum these bees up.

What do you think?

Or should we just stick them in the?

- All right, honestly, this is just way too small.

- It's pretty small, yeah.

They might have to get combined with another colony.

(vacuum roars) - Hi guys.

We're gonna go for a ride and then you're gonna get a pimp house.

- Get all these girls first.

(vacuum roars) - Oh.

- Problem is, we're seeing signs at this queen may be having issues.

- There's hardly any brood, honestly.

- There's hardly at all.

She's not really laying.

I think we might just pinch this mama.

- Aw, can I keep it?

- Yeah, yeah.

Queen bees live up to five years, but their egg laying diminishes over time.

So commercial beekeepers typically replace a queen every one to two years.

But it's great that this ol queen can find a home with Kim.

- She did.

And she swarmed from probably a big hive that was successful and it's the end of her reign.

So it's time we called it.

(upbeat music) This swarm isn't big enoug to occupy our new Apimaye box.

So we're gonna find another weak hive to merge it with.

All right, let's get in here, see what we got.

These are some recent removal hives.

They're all pretty weak.

I think we can get in and see what's going on in each of these and pick a good one.

Not a lot of bees.

What we're looking for is a good, established, small colony to combine with these bees that we just took out.

The bees that we just removed really aren't viable.

(rock music) There's one coming out right now Oh, there's one emerging.

- Oh, I love it.

Happy birthday, buddy.

Happy birthday.

- This is what we're gonna see in all these is just little tiny resource light.

Let's pick another hive, I think Yeah, same scenario really, just not a lot of peace.

I know they're queen, right?

I hope they're queen, right?

No, they're not.

So they're trying to make a queen.

- They'll make a mama.

You wanna get rid of it?

- Yeah, it's a queen cell.

They'll make queen cells, emergency cells, when they're queen lives.

This is a recent one.

- Don't pick it up.

Don't pick it up.

(Charlie laughs) (rock music) - Sorry about that.

- You want us to- - It's just instinct.

You can put it right up on there I totally forgot.

That's so funny.

(rock music) And this might- - You're not allowed to bee keep by yourself for a while.

- I know, right.

- Oh, geez, Louise.

- My strong hives are all leased out and it's fall, so I only have weak hives here.

- Did you put a queen in this one?

- Is she out?

- Hmm?

- Is she in the cage?

- Should be out by now.

- Oh yeah, there's bees crawling in there.

If yeah, she's out.

Is it just me or am I not seeing like really any bird?

- Did not see any.

- Didn't see any weird, no.

- What'd you do with your mama?

- Not seeing a queen or evidence of her so it's a good day to do some merging.

(country music) Reaching out to help you.

I'm not allowed.

- Don't do that.

- Don't do that.

- Yeah.

Since we're gonna be just using their own frames, we're just gonna take the frames out as well.

- So these hives are all just not doing so great.

This hive is queen, right, we know.

So we're basically gonna put the new box here so that these bees will all orient to this new spot.

- All right, so this is my brute division board.

- Okay.

- Remember, it had like three settings and this is for the pheromones to go through.

- Okay.

- So, we're just gonna put it in this setting.

- We're gonna close that, whatever side- - Whichever side you're gonna.

- Lets put 'em on this side.

- Okay, so we're gonna close the entrance on this one.

We're gonna have the ventilation on there.

(rock music) - At least these bees wil benefit from a better box too.

And so then we're gonna take these.

- Okay, but let me shake these on this side.

Am I correct, put 'em on that outside?

A couple of 'em got mixed up.

- Now let's put this one in here And a little bit of brood in there.

That's good.

Put a little bur home in the- - Exactly.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- And I replace that with one of them.

- That'll work.

- Just gonna put it in here.

Do you have any others?

- There's a little baby piece.

(country music) - Here we go.

- Have some brood.

- Little bit of brood.

- I see the queen.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh, the queen is there.

- Is that her right there?

I'm getting a shadow right here.

Right here.

Right here.

- Oh yeah, you're a beast.

- Are we gonna use her?

- Yeah, we're definitely gonna use her.

- All right.

So lemme just close this.

(country music) Perfect.

(country music) You got her there and I got these.

- Squeeze 'em tight.

- Squeeze them tight.

- Oh, that's awesome.

- Yeah, in the field that's gonna really help you.

- That will definitely help me.

- On a larger colony.

- Yep.

- Take 'em with you.

(country music) Here she goes.

(country music) - We had a queenless bunch of bees that we took from the water meter, then we took an existing colony, a weak colony, and we found the queen.

Kim found the queen, excuse me.

Kim found the queen 'cause she's amazing.

And then over time they're gonna merge together much easier than the method I use a lot of times, which is multiple boxes with newspaper in between and merging them like that.

- This is perfect for like really small colonies like what we've just done.

We had only a few frames.

- Yep.

- Of a colony.

And now we caught something even smaller.

- Right.

- And we want all of them to live.

This gives them a much bigger chance to survive.

- I need an army of these.

I think that's my next move.

Hey, I got an idea, y'all.

- What's up?

- What are we doing?

- Let's get a beer.

- Oh, I love beer.

- I love that.

- Who is for drinking?

- I am for drinking.

- Day drinking.

- Day drinking.

(country music) (upbeat music) - Follow me, this way.

(upbeat music) Prost comrade.

Cheers.

Hmm.

(festive music) You know I didn't present you with very good colonies while you're here.

- When you go out for removal, you really don't know what you're gonna be finding.

- That nuc, I could use 30 of those for hiving up bees and dividing colonies and merging colonies.

It's such a useful tool.

But thank you Korhan.

I wanna thank you Kim, fo being my hands and my muscles.

You were awesome.

That was just a great, great time.

I appreciate it.

- That's awesome.

- Should we just continue this adventure in Arizona?

- In Arizona?

- Yeah, come on over.

Looks like I'm going to Arizona, y'all.

All right, y'all take two.

We're in New Braunfels.

We got Stan Gore again.

The king of Texas friendly beekeepers.

So psyched to have Stan here.

We've got another forced abscond We're gonna get the queen this time, God willing.

Fingers crossed.

We've got the knowledge.

We're using Stan's methodology.

This is a tree that belongs to my friend Jerry.

I've been wanting to help Jerry with these bees for a long time.

I've been a little intimidated.

It's a pretty big hive.

But now I've got Stan and we're gonna get after it.

So fingers crossed, we get a queen.

I am feeling lucky today.

I'm feeling lucky every day I get up to go chase some bees around.

Hang out with Stan Gore it's always a good thing.

Oh, look at that, his Excalibur.

He's ready.

- Look at this.

- Look out.

- Sawzall.

(Stan laughs) - Maybe the first hole I'll do just three feet up.

- Yeah, well, we can hang our attraction frame, all the flying bees will come out, and they'll be drawn to that.

And let's try to contain 'em.

And we're hoping that cavity doesn't go too far up.

We just gotta give it a shot.

That's why we have the big power drill and the big old bit.

- All right.

I brought a vacuum too, just in case we wanna do a quick gather of bees.

I'm very impatient, Stan.

It's terrible.

- I'll get this Bendex 5,000 lit up.

How about that?

- All right, perfect.

(rock music) (metal clanks) - What do you think, Charlie?

Where'd you go, man?

- Whoa.

Somebody's calling the fire department.

- Yeah, how about that guy that came to our other location.

He thought there's a fire all going on.

- I might try this today.

Stan, you think this will work?

- Oh yeah.

It'll work till you get stung.

- Until I get stung.

(Stan laughs) How's that?

That work.

- Yeah, a little higher'd be better, but.

- A little more, okay.

- Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, while you're up there, can you- - Yep.

- Cut a few limbs.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

(sawzall buzzes) - What'd you hit?

Ouch.

Ouch.

- I'd walk away if I were you.

- I'm okay.

It just hurts.

(saw buzzes) Okay, humility.

It's all about humility.

You could also just get in a vehicle if you wanna watch.

We're gonna calm these ladies down a little bit.

-- ran a sawzall.

And that really ticked them off.

Everybody had to retreat, crew had to get suits on.

But now everybody's safe.

I've been stung up and down my body and my face, but I deserve that.

The bees will teach you humility every time.

So I'm thinking, what do you think, right here?

- That's perfect.

- All right.

- Give that a shot.

(sawzall buzzes) Pretty solid.

- Okay.

- That's not good.

(sawzall buzzes) - Why don't you just go down three or four inches?

- I'll come down to about here, how's that?

- That's perfect.

(sawzall buzzes) (rock music) - Nah, that's pretty solid.

- You want to try to blow some smoke up there see if you- - No, I mean, there's no- - You're not even going through it all.

- No, it's just solid.

I'm thinking I'd try right here is a latch stitch.

Is that cool?

- Yeah, go ahead.

(sawzall buzzes) - Still pretty solid, Stan.

I'm thinking they're all down.

- Well, let's just go with that.

Let's just drill the hole in the bottom.

- Okay, where do you want the hole in the bottom?

How low?

- It doesn't really matter.

I'd go about three or four inches above.

- Oh really?

All the way.

- Yeah.

- Right here.

- Yeah, that's good.

(sawzall buzzes) (rock music) - Yeah.

- I've experienced where it's all just dirt down here.

- Why don't you test it out real quick?

- Yeah.

(rock music) - Look at the top, see if there's anything coming out.

- Okay.

(rock music) Not really.

- Let's go a little above it.

(sawzall buzzes) (rock music) Smoke 'em up.

- Yeah.

(rock music) - Yeah, there's a little smoke coming out here, a little bit.

- Oh, it's coming out over here.

- Oh.

- We don't even need to drill a hole down here, Stan.

I think we use this one.

Maybe if we put some material around it.

- Yeah, lemme get some pearl out.

(country music) - We blew smoke in here and it all came out right on this area.

So we have a ready made opening down below.

- I'm gonna cut up som dowling to plug those holes up.

- Okay.

(country music) - To keep the smoke from coming out.

- Yeah.

- Use that blower and I'll see if we get some.

Keep going.

Yeah, I see it.

- All seems to be kind of blowing out though.

- Do you wanna go ahead and drill another hole?

- Yeah, I'm thinking because we can close that.

(sawzall buzzes) (rock music) There we go.

- All right, thank you Lord.

- See how this does.

(rock music) Here they come, big time.

This a real abscond.

They are boiling out right now.

That is awesome.

- Honey, bee gone.

So what this does is corral the bees.

- That's what I said to my first wife.

Honey, be gone.

- So what we're gonna do is just kind of chill.

They're slowly coming out so we're waiting for that queen to come out.

- Right.

Stan is the king of chi I'd be forcing smoke in there and I got 'em.

I'll get 'em all, come out.

Should I lower that frame a little bit maybe?

- No, I wouldn't.

- It's okay.

All right, big mama.

- And that's a crack pipe queen catcher.

- Crack pipe queen catcher.

- Every time I look down in my glove compartment I see this thing sticking outta my ashtray.

And if I get pulled over.

- You're gonna have a long discussion with Johnny Law.

- Yeah, this is looking good.

- It's looking great, yeah.

There's still a lot of smoke coming out.

That's great.

- Yeah, so we wait till that smoke subsides, then we'll give it another short round.

- Am I the only one who thinks Temple of Doom when I hear Short Round?

Stan's about to find the queen, I can feel it.

I'm 'gramming, baby.

'Gramming with Stan.

(Stan chuckles) These are spicy bees for sure.

These are New Braunfels bees.

Welcome to New Braunfels, Stan.

- I love it.

- Our bees are surly.

- I'm thinking of taking this down.

And I'm gonna nail it over here.

- Okay.

- 'Cause they're hanging to the tree more than they're flying up.

- Yeah, I can just lower it right down so we get the bees to kind of start crawling on it.

- Yeah, that's good.

- A little lower or?

- No, no, that's good.

- That's good.

(rock music) Oh, look at 'em go.

They're moving right up to it.

- Still a little smoke coming out right?

- Yep.

Fly, be free.

(rock music) There's a lot of bees here, Stan - Yeah.

Man, they're all over you.

(rock music) I kinda let 'em just be alone.

- Oh, you leave 'em alone?

Okay.

- Yeah I do - I'm obnoxious with the bees.

I like to mess with 'em.

- We're trying to let 'em do a natural thing and a big hand, they just don't see that as too natural.

- Yeah, I guess you're right.

(rock music) Boy, that's really coming out nice.

- I want to keep that smoke moving though 'cause it'll get her to dislodge from her babies.

- Yeah.

Oh!

- See her?

- No, I saw a bee with an egg hanging off its butt but it was pollen.

(rock music) Hey, you wanna hand that to me?

(rock music) - Just, yeah, look for her first Starting to go up the tree a little bit.

Swarm commander is queen's pheromones synthetic.

The queen's in there still, but this will fake 'em out.

- I wonder what that does to a queen.

Does she feel like there's a rival there or something?

- You know what?

I don't know.

I don't think so.

I tell you what, they sure love it.

Slow smoke.

- Like doing a brisket isn't it, Stan?

(Stan laughs) - Oh, look at that.

It's pretty thick there.

What's cool if you kinda let 'em like this, you can kind of look at the flatness and then all of a sudden there's a ball.

- Yep.

- Now I know she's most time in that ball.

That Honey Bee Gone's working though.

Look at that.

They're not crossing that line.

Wow.

You brave man.

- I'm not smart.

I just see better.

You said you put 'em in your mouth.

- Yeah.

Put 'em in your mouth real quick Just put 'em in your mouth and close your mouth.

Close your mouth and now open it.

(Stan laughs) Just make sure they're a drone.

- Make sure they're a drone, yeah.

- Still see 'em coming out.

They're kind of too happy right here.

- Yeah - We need to make 'em unhappy.

- We're doing something natural, making the bees think it's time to leave and doing so gently, but persistently.

So what we got now is just a lot of bees pouring out.

We're looking for the queen.

Sometimes it just takes her a while to get out.

- You never know what you're gonna get.

(humorous music) Here she is.

- You got her?

- See her right there.

Ah, just hold on a second.

Just don't wanna rush this 'cause she's flighty.

All right, she's in there.

- Woo-hoo!

Got the queen.

- Way to go, man.

- Purdy, she's fat.

- People always ask, you know, how do you find the queen?

A lot of times it's just a lot of praying.

And if you have the techniques down, the smoking and the stopping and just patience.

Sometimes it takes an hour sometimes it takes eight hours.

- Stan, you amaze me.

That was awesome.

What a good queen eye and patience.

That's what it's all about right there.

Look at these clusters of bees.

There's a lot of bees.

This vac's already getting heavy on my back.

This job just sucks.

- Come on, turn around.

She's being honorary.

There she is, okay.

You see her in there?

So we bring this little plunger up and we go all the way up to here and see her thorax and it's just a very little dot, dot, dot.

And there she goes.

She's marked.

See how long her, her abdomen is?

- Wow.

- Full of eggs.

- Stan gets all the glory.

Old Charlie's stuck cleaning up the mess.

That's the American way.

(upbeat music) There's your bees.

The queen's in here, so they're interested.

Gonna lock these bees in.

(upbeat music) Okay, these girls are coming with us.

All right, man, you are the king of queens.

That was great.

No, you did.

- Look at 'em fly.

- You've got the eye.

You got the eye.

Good stuff.

- Woo-hoo.

- All right, you wanna follow me out and hide these up with me?

- Yeah.

- All right.

Perfect timing 'cause I could really use Stan's help with a rogue swarm.

Haha, you got the rig here.

- You know, you should get you one of these.

This is the water bottle made into a swarm getter.

And so I attach this meta flag pole assembly, like that.

And what we do, we get that swarm up there and pop it and then you bring 'em down, dump 'em into a bucket, and you find the queen put her in a cage and all the bees follow in the box.

- So here's the deal, yesterday I did a water meter removal, found the queen, put 'em in the box.

They were so docile I didn't lock 'em in.

I gave 'em some resources.

They're right down in this box.

They didn't stay.

They basically swarmed, which is they decided to leave.

And right now they're hanging very unhappily in the rain.

So we are gonna give them a much more beneficial place to live than a rainy day up in a mesquite tree.

- Yeah, it's just gonna be a little short.

- I think I can do it, Stan.

Don't try this at home.

Ready?

- Ready.

(mid tempo music) All right, bring it on down.

Awesome.

Here we go.

(mid temp music) - You seeing her?

- Not yet.

(mid tempo music) - Once again, Stan is picking daisies and I'm up here working in a tree.

(mid tempo music) - Get 'em all dry.

(mid tempo music) - Come on.

- It's always nice when you get 'em on the first punch.

(mid temp music) - Now they're just flying all over the place.

- There she is.

- You the man, Stan.

Holy smokes.

- See her?

So we just put her in this crack pipe queen catcher and there she is.

- Stan, you're amazing.

King of the queen finding.

- That was a pretty good punch you did.

One punch and she's in the buck.

- There you go.

Well, that worked.

- Is that the tree?

The forced abscond?

- Yep.

(mid tempo music) There they go.

Now they're moving in.

There you go, ladies.

- Today was amazing.

We got the queen, we got the swarm, the bees are in the box, and we had fun.

And I'll just tell you, I just love doing this.

- Definitely redemption from that first day where we couldn't find the queen That one actually worked out just fine.

But here it was like a masterclass.

This is how you find queens do absconds, and- - Just fun.

- I mean we're climbing trees, chasing bees in the rain.

Can't beat it.

Oh boy, we got a big day ahead of us.

We got lots of bees.

That's what I love.

Three hives.

Two in this house and one in the tree.

And the tree is a booger.

It's a big, big tree.

It's gonna take us a lot of work After honing my technique with Stan Gore, I think this tree is gonna be the perfect opportunity to test out my forced abscond skills.

Hi Becky.

How you doing?

- Good, how are you?

- Good.

Good to see ya.

Got some bees I hear.

- Two hives inside this house.

It's my grandparents' house that has been here for over a hundred years and we just can't do anything around here because the bees are so bad.

- Y'all been stung?

- Yes.

- That's no bueno.

Are you okay with us cutting walls?

- Yes.

- We like to hear that.

- Yes, we do.

- Do whatever you want to the house.

Okay.

Bees in the living room and the bathroom.

Let's do this y'all.

So they're in the wall over here Let me see if I can find it.

Whoa, I see 'em right away.

Well, there's a lot of dead bees down in the tub.

And there they are.

- Okay, all on the inside wall.

We have no heat on the outside wall.

- No heat on the outside wall.

- So inside all the way to the top.

- So even if someone was living here, we'd have to do an interior removal, which is no fun when people are living here.

- So Charlie was smoking the bees because that makes 'em think there's a forest fire in the area.

So what they do is go back in and gorge on honey and then they just get lazy and fat and they just want to lay around watching TV all day.

Nobody wants to go out and sting anybody.

- And we don't have any electricity or anything we worry about cutting so cut away.

(saw buzzes) - Rip and tear, baby.

Rip and tear.

Oh, there's wood back there.

- Oh it's laugh, yeah.

I love when the client says you can do whatever you want to this house.

That's like music to my ears.

Well that's a whole hive right there.

- Wow, awesome.

That's a one solid brood lobe.

(rock music) Vacuum?

- Yep.

Got it.

(soft rock music) - What do you need from me up there?

- It always inspires me to work with you.

(rock music) One down, one to go.

Not too bad, that first one.

This next one, no idea what we're getting into.

We got close quarters in a bathroom.

We're like camera guys all over us.

So we're gonna be kind of sweating.

It's hot.

Ow!

I got stung by a bee.

I just got stung in the face.

(rock music) - There they come.

(bees buzz) We got bees.

(bees buzz) - Don't want the crew to get stung.

(rock music) This is just honey.

Look how heavy that is.

- Honey.

- Oh man, that is gorgeous.

These guys have a lot of resources.

(rock music) This thing just keeps going up.

(rock music) - So I am gonna hang the back here and put it at the entrance.

The pheromones coming from the back will attract the bees too.

And so good way to just capture stragglers.

(rock music) Whoa.

There we go.

And I'm still alive.

I think it's time to put my forced abscond Jedi skills to the test.

(country music) Those two went great.

We got all the bees out, but it was hot.

We're tired.

Now we're tackling this big mama gama tree.

This is no joke.

This is a very, very old, old oak.

It's way older than me and it's gonna be around way longer than me.

It's kind of cool.

So we're gonna try to take good care of the tree.

Drill holes make it very inhospitable for these bees.

Hopefully we get a good abscond.

I also need a taco.

I'm fueled by tacos.

This operation runs on Texas breakfast tacos.

Wow, this is a big oak.

Just giving them some smoke.

We start with one hole, like right nearby, and then we're gonna move further and further back.

It's a big, big tree.

Big space we're working with though, so we'll see what we get.

(drill buzzes) (rock music) That's a solid tree right there.

- Well, you're kind of drilling crooked.

- Am I?

(rock music) We try to make it look difficult so we can charge a higher fee.

- Yeah, and otherwise everybody else will be doing it.

(rock music) I'm tired guys, sorry.

(drill buzzes) Wow.

There we go.

- There you go.

- Oh wait, I've got it.

- Well done.

- Thank you.

So bees are coming out of the hole I just drilled, which is good.

- Do you have heat in there?

- Yeah.

Gotta get it going.

You wanna try and get the other one going?

- Yeah.

- You need it really ripping.

I think this smoker's a piece of crap.

And get the other smoker.

(rock music) So far our attempt at a forced abscond is not going very well.

- I've seen them where the smoke comes out, but they don't, you know.

Like they find somewhere else to run to in the tree.

And with a tree that big and old that cavity could do anything inside there.

- It's just not ripping.

It needs to be (censored) smoking like crazy.

I'm gonna dump it out.

Thank you, man.

(rock music) - See it coming out over there or no?

- Yeah, you got it coming out, George.

Keep going.

(rock music) - So what now?

- We do this for a while and then stop.

And then do this for a while and then stop.

But I'm quickly running out of patience.

If I don't get a good abscond here in a bit, I'm going to convert to a trap out.

I'm also outta juice.

I'm outta gas.

It's hot.

And just when I'm ready to throw in the towel.

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Look at that.

- Woo!

Look at that!

(men laugh) That's what we want.

(Charlie laughs) Awesome.

Bees literally come pouring out of the tree.

I'm gonna make a bait box and just keep smoking 'em.

They're gonna keep pouring out.

You're gonna be amazed how many come out.

I got some of the swarm commander that Stan uses and it should do the trick.

Smells like lemongrass mostly.

So this is all drawn out comb, one, two doesn't take much.

Sometimes Texas bees get a little spicy when we have to evict them.

- Charlie, I think they're a little mad at me.

This is the moment where you're like, gosh, I'm really glad I got a bee suit.

- Right.

(men laugh) - They're definitely not happy with me.

- Yeah.

- Now we gotta give 'e somewhere to go up above, right.

- Well done.

- Wow.

We're like an acrobatic team.

Good job, dude.

- Right on, man.

- Dream team.

- Luckily, you know what you're doing.

- Of course I do.

Now all I gotta do is secure this strap around the tree.

(country music) Easier said than done.

Hand that up to me.

- Hand what?

- The hammer.

I think I can do it with the hammer.

Can't touch this.

It's hammer time.

(Charlie laughs) How'd you die, Charlie?

I'm like a ninja with a grappling hook.

- Nope, uh-uh, throw it again.

- Oh, you suck.

- Oh, these things can go either way.

But I was really surprised when they came boiling out of there like that.

There's no telling how big it is - Well, this is going great.

I still gotta try and find this queen.

- Oh, that didn't piss him off at all.

- It didn't?

(George laughs) Ow.

Did you get stung?

- Yeah, through my glove.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.

Sucks to be a you.

- Look at him, man.

He's getting stung.

Not even moving.

You all right?

- Yep.

They're just getting through my glove.

- Grab a smoker, get some smoke on your hands.

- There you go.

It's coming out the entrance now - It's a little bit like your buddy comes over to watch the game, sits down on the couch, and drops a little.

(Charlie mimics trumpet) Well, you're gonna leave.

- It's bad.

- Right?

You're gonna leave.

It's bad.

But eventually you're gonna come back.

There's snacks there.

The game's on so you'll be lured back.

- But if he drops the same bomb right into the intake system of the AC vent and apartment complex, everybody's out.

- Everybody's out.

Everybody's out.

- They're all gonna be standing out on the front of their street.

- That's right.

- That's what's happening here.

- That's what we're doing.

Any interest in the box yet?

- Not really.

They're moving up.

They're definitely moving up.

- So what are you gonna do now?

- Make it smell bad in the front of the hive and I'm gonna turn it into a trap out.

It's just way too hot and we've been at it way too long to waste our time still trying to find this queen, but our abscond worked super well.

We're just gonna augment that with a trap out.

(rock music) - Hopefully, they'll stick with their original abscond and not get back in here.

- The bees have left the building.

- Not pretty, but we got it done Boo-yaka-shaw.

It's not quite as nice as Stan's forced abscond, but that's beekeeping and anything in life really, it's always about learning and growing as you go.

Definitely makes learning easier with good friends like Stan and George.

Good friends, good times.

(music begins) For more information about Charlie Bee Company, including new and exciting removals, visit us online as charliebee.com.