Weekly Winners 4/27/08
April 27, 2008 by Annie
Weekly Winners this week features a bee removal at my house. The bees had been noticed, but it wasn’t until they decided to make the garage their home too that something had to be done. This was one of the coolest things to watch.
The Weekly Winners is the great idea of Lotus at Sarcastic Mom - click on her for the original weekly winners post, and to see more great weekly winners!
Getting to the bees…
The colony, exposed. As a side note, this is also right under my bedroom, and right about where my bed (and my head) is.
Looking up into the combs - the cleaner looking ones on the right are the freshly made honey combs.
Now, if someone had ripped away a wall of my home, I think I’d be pissed…they weren’t phased. (And yes, I have a zoom lens.)
Time for the removal. Our bee man took a shop vac type contraption and vacumed the bees up, into a box.
Then, once he had a fair amount vacumed up, he went in and cut the combs out.
If there were any bees still clinging on to the comb, he vacumed those up as well.
He saved this comb for me - see the two outlets, almost like coral? This is the comb that is used to create the Queen.
The cut out combs…this is about a medium sized trash can.
Fresh comb, complete with honey inside…
He estimated we had between 30,000 and 40,000 bees.
When all was done, he had ripped out the section of the house to get at the bees, cleaned out the entire colony, put baking soda down to absorb honey smell (honey can turn bad and stink), replaced the section of the house, stuffed the holes they originally got in through with steel wool, and caulked the crap out of the house. Then he dumped the comb, but took all the bees that he vacumed to a beekeeper, so the keeper could care for the honey bees.
Seriously awesome to see.
Thanks for visiting!
Wow that is a great set of weekly winner! I don’t think I could have stayed so close to them though!
Ummmm, *shuddering*. You would have had to sedate me.
Wow Great pictures and great story. Plus I am glad to hear the the bees were taken somewhere where they can live on!
That was really neat! Thanks for sharing with us!
That was really cool to see! Thanks so much for sharing!
And I’m so glad he took the bees where they could be farmed properly!!
That was all kinds of cool…and a little scary. Great pics! mmmm honey…
That is the craziest thing! OMG. I am glad you had professional help.
Goodness me! What amazing photos!!
Oh man…Those are amazing photos! My son had to look at them over and over. He was amazed
Eek! I saw a story on the news where the bees had moved into all the walls and everything. They told the woman that even if they could flush the bees out, that the honey would start to rot in her walls and start to smell. I’m glad you found your problem in time.
That was absolutely fantastic. One of the best Weekly Winners I’ve ever seen.
I know bees can be scary for some (allergies and such), but to me they’re simply amazing. I would have been right there, driving the bee man crazy by asking him “can I help?” every 10 seconds…
Here is my weekly winner post for today.
Have a great week!
Whoa. That’s a lot of bees.
Wow — kinda cool, but very creepy to have all those bees in your house!
Wow. I *loved* this. The story and the pictures. I’m sorry that you had to have the related hassles, but how cool that you shared the experience (the good and interesting parts!) with all of us. Awesome.
Wow, cool pictures. That’s simultaneously intriguing and frightening. Glad they got that away from you!
very cool. but i wouldn’t want them at my house either. i love the pics you got. and i’m glad that you have a zoom lens! it is nice that they clean it all out and carefully get the bees into a container and take them to a bee keeper instead of killing them. we have waps here at my house and i’m not so kind when i think of them… i just want them to be gone, no matter what has to be done… they serve no purpose to me, except to live in fear of being stung while sleeping… since they live in my drop ceiling in my bedroom!! fun, I tell ya, fun!!
hugs, jenn
oh my gosh that is so cool and creepy all at the same time!
One word from me…breathtaking…in a bitter sweet way.