few days ago, I happened to look up at one of our upstairs eaves and saw some bees flying around a tiny opening in the shingles. After a listen at the wall inside, it was clear we had a beehive in there! Totally creepy, especially because I am severely allergic to bee stings! We didn't want the bees exterminated, so we found this father-son team who could remove the bees humanely and relocate them to their farm outside of town. The guys were super nice, and very efficient, and the whole operation only took a few hours. We non-bee people enjoyed our perfectly safe vantage point from the bedroom window down below. It was fascinating. The guys taped themselves into their bee-proof hazmat gear, hoisted a bunch of equipment up onto the roof and went to work. After a bit of sawing, the fascia and soffit came off and the hive was revealed in all its glory.
It looked remarkably like rows of oblong eggo waffles. This is a closeup of the hive as taken by the bee guy. You could not pay me enough to get this close.
You don't see many bees because the guys taped the hose of a Shop-Vac next to the opening to the hive (you can sort of see it in the top photo) so most of the bees were sucked into a bag to be released at the bee-guys' farm. Like I said, very efficient! To get the last of the bees out, they set off some sort of smoke bomb, after which the bees came swarming out of there like a scene from a horror flick!
This is what it looked like after a lot of the combs were removed. Not much honey, but lots of future bees that fortunately won't be hatching anywhere near here.
I can't even look at that photo without shivering! Bees and flying stinging things give me the willies. I'm very happy they are heading to a nice farm waaaay out in the country where hopefully they will not be tempted to return to our neighborhood. Thank goodness for that.
See ya! ...wouldn't wanna bee ya!
Cheers,
Jenny
