Save the queen, rescue the hive

Beekeepers extract massive 60,000-plus bee colony Hidden behind a wall, pollinators are relocated

Steve Krueger, at right, holds a brood comb extracted from a massive hive in an outbuilding while Nick Knuth at left brings out an empty frame for the "cutout," which will be placed in a wooden box..John Faucher Photo

A thermal imaging camera helped local beekeepers and honeybee rescue volunteers Steve Krueger and Nick Knuth pinpoint a large colony of honeybees in an outbuilding off Shiocton Street, Sunday, Aug. 2 in New London. Once they identified the exact location, they made careful cuts and extracted the hive and bees for transplant .John Faucher Photo

Local beekeepers Steve Krueger, left, and Nick Knuth carefully extract a wild honeybee colony from the wall of an outbuilding on Shiocton Street. Thermal imaging revealed a massive hive measuring nine feet tall and roughly 2 feet wide, housing an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 bees. John Faucher Photo

Posted Thursday, August 6, 2026 10:01 am

By John Faucher

NEW LONDON — Tucked inside the wall of an outbuilding on the 1000 block of Shiocton Street, an estimated 60,000 to 80,000 honeybees had quietly built an empire.
Thermal imaging revealed a sprawling hive measuring roughly nine feet tall by two feet wide. To most, a colony that size in a residential structure would be a pest control nightmare. However, to veteran local beekeepers Steve Krueger of New London, and Nick Knuth of Hortonville, it was a vital mission.
“Too many people just spray their stuff and what a waste,” Krueger said, reflecting on their decade of doing residential bee extractions together. “It’s a responsibility, you know, helping mother nature.”
For the homeowners, calling in beekeepers rather than an exterminator was an easy choice.
Rather than destroying the valuable, docile pollinators, they opted for a full extraction to safely relocate the queen, brood stock, and honey.

Taking hits for the hive
Extracting a wild colony from an uninsulated structure is a delicate, painful process. While the bees are generally calm, defending a massive, established hive brings inherent risks.
During the extraction, Knuth caught multiple stings across his temple, ear, and neck. The severe stings caused dramatic swelling around his eyes—a reaction he admitted he had never experienced before.
Yet, despite his eyes nearly swelling shut, Knuth’s focus never wavered from the primary goal: securing the queen and preserving the hive.
Krueger, a 75-year-old Vietnam infantry veteran, also took a couple of stings through his gloves during the rescue. When advised to take a Benadryl and rest afterward, the retired plant manager of Steel King Industries dismissed the idea outright.

“There’s no time for taking a break or lying down or napping,” Krueger said. “To me, those are minutes you never get back. They’re never coming back.”
“The way I figure, you’ve got plenty of time to rest when the good Lord calls you home,” said Krueger.
Knuth, who is 20 years younger and owns several growing companies including Solid Black Seal Coating, Line-by-Line Striping and Bandit Garbage Bin Cleaning, agreed.
With his eyes swollen like a boxer in the ninth round, he said, “I don’t have time to take a nap. I got three jobs yet to bid today. Can one of you guys help me with this hood and grab the flashlight?”

Deciphering the colony

During the multi-hour operation, the pair realized the massive colony was right on the verge of swarming, the process where a crowded hive splits to create a new colony.
They figure this colony was a two-year build. Krueger was amazed how a north-facing colony survived the winter.
“In midsummer... she’s laying up to 2,000 eggs a day,” Krueger explained regarding the queen’s output. “A worker bee only lives four and a half to five weeks and it dies. The queen will live up to three or four years until she just wears out.”
Inside the Shiocton Street wall, Krueger and Knuth spotted distinctive, vertically hanging “queen cells” and a massive cluster of bees gathering on the exterior wall—telltale signs that the workers were feeding royal jelly to new larvae to raise a competing queen and branch off.
Successfully moving a wild hive requires understanding the complex biology and internal “GPS” of the honeybee.

“They go up in the air and make a GPS flight,” Krueger said. “They recognize the ground underneath them and they recognize the colony they came from. If you take a bee box and move it five feet, the next morning the bees will be piled up right where their home was.”
Because of this precise spatial memory, extracted bees must be carefully transported miles away to reset their internal coordinates.

Protecting local pollinators
Both Krueger and Knuth produce and sell local raw honey, but commercial gain takes a back seat to conservation.
Krueger noted that domestic honeybee populations have faced severe threats since the accidental introduction of invasive Varroa mites from Asia in the mid-1980s, making wild rescue efforts all the more vital.

Additionally, raw local honey provides significant health benefits to community members. Because local bees forage within a three-mile radius on local flora, consuming raw local honey helps residents build immunity against area seasonal allergies.
“You got to eat some, but it’s got to be local honey because that’s what you’re allergic to,” Krueger said.
With the queen successfully extracted and the brood stock secured, the Shiocton Street colony will spend the rest of the summer acclimating to a new hive box, ensuring tens of thousands of local pollinators live to see another spring.