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Bees

Honeybee Problem

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As much as I was happy we were finally taking care of our honeybee problem, it hurt me to watch it happen.  We’ve lived in this home for years, and a couple of years ago, we started noticing a few more bees than usual were hanging around our property.  It was great for our fruit trees, I’ll admit, and we got some great yield the last two years, but when our friends and family had to duck and weave to get to the front door, we knew we had a serious honeybee problem, and it was time to finally do something about it.

My son wanted to take care of it himself, even though we had no idea where the actual hive was.  He swore he could save us money, but I couldn’t stand the thought of my son up against all those bees.  He could get seriously hurt, falling off a ladder or getting stung.  No, I wanted a true professional honeybee removal company to take care of it.  They’d be able to find the hive faster, make sure all of the honeybees were removed and do it much safer than my inexperienced, but well-intentioned son could.

So, I was relieved when the truck drove up, full of equipment and a couple of experienced young men.  They easily found the hive in one of the decorative stucco-covered pillars under the deck that ran the full length of the house.  I couldn’t believe how close the hive had been to where we eat, sleep and live.  How did we let it go on this long?

I must admit, though, my heart dropped when I realized what these honeybee removal technicians had to do to get to the hive.  They broke out the rotary saw and cut into the stucco all the way down to the wood, bees swarming everywhere.  I knew it would be repaired, but it was still a shock.  But I was not prepared for the shock I got when he pulled the stucco off.  I’ve never seen so many bees in one place.  There must have been thousands.  Wax, long-dead bees and honey dripped and lined the inside of the pillar.  The air was thick with bees and the sound of their anger at being disturbed.  Bit by bit, they pulled pieces of honeycomb out of the pillar and placed them carefully in a special box.  Honeybees were carefully vacuumed into a special device and then also deposited into the box.  They took special care with the queen bee, making sure she was unharmed.  My son gave me a look that said he was grateful I didn’t take him up on his offer to do this by himself.

Our honeybee problem was extensive, because I’d let it go on so long without having them removed.  Now, after a lot of damage and several hours, they were now going to live somewhere else, far, far away from our home!

Bees

Bee Removal

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bee removal
Bee removal sounds so much simpler than it really is.  Mom and Dad had no idea what they were in for, but it sure made me glad I’m still a kid.  Ten-year-olds don’t have to mess with that kind of stuff.  Yuck!

            We had no idea we had a problem at first.  I was just out in the backyard kicking my soccer ball around one day (I was really throwing rocks over the fence into the neighbor’s fish pond, but don’t tell Mom and Dad that, okay?), and I saw a bee fly right past my head, towards the shed.  I followed it, thinking it was pretty cool.  It landed at the bottom of one of the wood slats and crawled right through a little crack and disappeared. 

            Throughout the whole summer, week after week, I watched bees coming in and out of the shed wall.  I’d keep track of which field they flew off to.  Sometimes, I’d pick some of our other neighbor’s flowers and stick them near the hole, just to see if the bees would land on them.  Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t.  I didn’t tell Mom and Dad.  I just didn’t think they’d be interested.  Guess I should’ve said something.  Oh, well.

            One Saturday, Dad came out and headed out to the shed to grab some weed killer.  I was actually kicking the soccer ball around that day, and I told him he might want to watch out for the bees.  He had no idea what I was talking about, so I showed him.  He sat there with me and watched the hole for a while, and it looked like he was getting more and more worried and kind of mad.  I hoped he was mad at the bees and not me.

            Yep, he was mad at the bees all right, and he got even madder when he called for bee removal and found out there was a whole huge swarm of bees living right there in our backyard.  Dad made me go inside when the bee removal guys showed up, but I could see everything from the back window. 

            They had to pull the wall apart, and I could see Dad gag a little.  Later, he said it was an awful smell, because some bees had died and were just rotting in there.  I guess some mice had crawled in there because of the smell of the wax and honey, and died, so they were rotting, too.  Mom kind of turned white, when Dad talked about that part, and only said she was glad they weren’t in the walls of our house.  That would’ve been nasty!

            They’ve cleaned everything out now, removed all the bees and stuff, and filled the hole back up.  We had to rebuild the shed a little bit.  Dad told me to tell him whenever I see bees crawling into the shed or our house.  Kinda cool that I have an important job now!