Buzz, Buzz, Buzz ...

Honey bees have been living in the wall of our garage for several years now. They go dormant or hibernate or something in the winter, but spring has sprung in Georgia and they are back. One day--after the yellow-pollen haze is gone and I can safely leave the house--I'll take a picture of them to post. They mostly live inside the wall, but they also come out and huddle close together looking like a big, black blob on the side of the garage.

So, they've been there several years. Chris has looked for a way to get rid of them without killing them--he's a nice guy, rescued a neighbor's dog that had fallen in another neighbor's pond at 1:30 yesterday morning and couldn't get out. But he's having a hard time finding one, that doesn't cost an arm and a bee wing! He's also cheap, so when the humanitarian side and the cheap side conflict, he just does nothing. And the bees haven't really been a problem.

It's kind of cool to see them hanging out on the side of the garage. And if you press your hand on the wall inside, it feels warm--these activities are good for briefly amusing the nephews when they come to visit.

But yesterday the bees became a problem. We're fixing up the room over the garage to bee (pun intended) Chris' office. Some structural work to keep the roof from collapsing on him while he sits at his desk, running his empire, required the replacement of the drywall on the vaulted ceiling. When the drywall came down off the ceiling beside the wall where the bees live, they were able to get inside the garage for the first time. They came in through the little crack between the roof rafters and the drywall on the wall.

Needless to say no one wanted to try to hang drywall with bees swarming around! Enter Great Stuff! That very cool stuff, that is almost as versatile as Duct Tape. Chris sprayed it in the crack to keep more bees from coming into the room, then left the room for a while. The bees all disappeared--going back to their hive in the wall.

We might decide to keep them if we could figure out how to get the honey out of the wall--but fresh honey mixed with insulation doesn't sound like something you want to smear on a biscuit!

So if anyone has any ideas for how to humanely and cheaply get rid of bees, please, let us know!

Comments

Leslie said…
Boy, this gives an entirely new meaning to the concept of sneaking out to the garage to get a buzz on...

(ok, bad joke)

Seriously, you can call beekeepers in your area, or a local beekeeping group. If you're not sure how to find them, try calling your county extension office, they can probably tell you how to connect with beekeepers in your area. You might be able to find a beekeper who wants to move them to one of his own hives.
10:56 AM
Karen Kirkpatrick said…
Thanks for the bad joke! We've made similar ones, since we have a history of things getting buzzed out there.

We used to have a tenant in the garage apt. who, previous to the bees, was buzzing day and night--while through the fog and haze (not pollen induced) he whined about having no money for rent!

I think Chris has called a couple of beekeepers--they were the expensive option. But we may be at the point where money is less of an object. He can't work out there if the bees find another way inside. And he's read that they'll destroy the siding, which will mean more money down the road.

The joys of homeownership!
11:23 AM
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