I got an email notifying me of a family who has bees in their house. After some phone tag I finally set up a time to meet and inspect the house. After introducing myself we walked around the side of the home. As we were walking, I asked him if he had an idea of how long the bees had been there. He said, “oh, about two and a half years.”
It was a cool day. It had rained that morning. I remember the beads of water on the grass blades as we made our way to the side of the house. He pointed up towards the wood siding, “There they are”. I saw the familiar scene of bees coming and going. Had it been the middle of a hot summer, or around May 15th when the black locus bloom, there would have been bees all over. They were as calm as the day itself.
I told him there are a few ways to take bees out of a home. One of which is a slow extraction. You have to seal all possible entrances except one. Then you funnel the bees to an empty hive body (bee hive box). It sounds easy, but it is not. It takes time (weeks). You can’t just seal up the entrance and let the bees die either. When bees die moisture is created and mold will grow. A dead-out bee hive stinks. I told them they don’t want this in their walls.
Slow extraction is much more expensive because the amount of work involved and the frequency of my visits required. Also, I would have to return with an established hive. This is a trick of extracting the honey in the walls if you cannot get to it yourself. The bees will go back in once the queen has died and clean out the hive. The best, if possible is manual extraction; which can be done externally or internally depending on the location of the hive. I asked to have a look in the house.
We went into the home. I took my shoes off. I was escorted into the couple’s bedroom. I walked over to the corner of the room. I started feeling the walls. A bee hive is about 90 degrees. I didn’t feel any temperature differences in the walls. I put my hand on the ceiling. I started moving it around. I got to the corner. Significant difference. It was hot. I said, “Oh, yeah, here it is.” I asked the man to feel it for himself. He had to pull a stool over. “Wow”, that’s incredible. I looked at the wife. I began talking and could see the hand she was holding over her mouth shaking a bit. I could tell all of this was making her uncomfortable. As I’m writing this I laughed to myself thinking about the night she must have had trying to sleep after I left, knowing there is a bee hive in her bed room. I reassured her everything will be fine.
I told them I will have to cut out part of their ceiling. Plastic will be taped to the walls and the floor. I basically have to create a Dexter kill room. The process is messy. When you move comb with liquid honey and nectar it drips. It is extremely sticky. I’m watching the wife’s face. I didn’t tell them there are probably 60 thousand bees in their bedroom. What is important to me is that I don’t damage anything and no bees get loose. I will use a bee-vac to suck up the bees. The comb will be placed in empty bee frames with rubber bands and wires.
I’m very excited to do this. We are planning on May the 11th. I will ask for someone to help me, and probably have someone there to take pictures. I look forward to posting about the experience.
Thank you for reading my first post.
Respectfully,
Ross Harding
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