Bird
Epic Contributor
You might also be able to smoke them out. But most of the wild hive harvesting stories I've read all involve cutting down the tree.
Yep, that's the way we got our first hive when I was a kid. And I have no intention of ever doing that again. That was an unforgettable experience. I did not want to participate in that, but my Dad didn't give me that option. So I put on a long sleeved shirt, put rubber bands around the cuffs, put on my straw hat, found an old lace curtain Mother had discarded, draped it over my hat, turned up the collar of my shirt, and tied a string around my neck to hold the curtain against the shirt collar. Now we didn't have any of these modern tools, only an axe to cut the tree down and to split it. And almost as soon as that tree fell, I discovered there were 3 bees under that lace curtain with me. So I shed that and learned to work bees as Dad did, with no protection at all.