The Bartlett Bee Whisperer is a honey bee rescue and relocation service in a few Mid-Eastern/Southern States (West Tennessee, East Arkansas, and North Mississippi). After the Bee Whisperer rescues the bees, he then uses them to repopulate empty hive boxes for local beekeepers who have suffered colony losses.

“First I identify that they are indeed honey bees,” David said. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t know the difference between Bees and wasps or yellow jackets. I then locate the hive using forward-looking infrared. Step by step the area of the home is opened, and all combs removed. Brood combs are rubber banded into hive frames and honey goes into a bucket (as long as the bees have never been sprayed). If the homeowner is willing to eat a piece of comb with me, it’s probably never been sprayed. The bees who do not follow the combs into the new hive box are vacuumed into a two-stage vacuum. They are added back to the new hive once they are set up in their new yard.”

“No one is aware of the size of their honey bee hive,” he added. “They are all surprised because they are expecting something the size of a wasp nest or hornet’s nest. The infrared gives them the first clue, but that’s only the brood combs of the hive. The babies are incubated at 94.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Any honey combs in the hive are cooler and usually don’t show on the IR.”

David has been doing this for 9 years. This time, however, even the experienced professional was intrigued. So much so that he decided to document everything and post it to Facebook. There, his story has been liked by nearly 50,000 people in just a few days.

Scroll down to see what happened!

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