Bees in Emma's Walls! Oh MY!

October 9, 2010

We moved into our new home at the end of June, before Ewan was 1 month old. And it was only a few days in that we started noticing dead bee's in the house. At first I thought maybe it was because with all the moving in that a few bees had gotten into the house. But it was every morning I would sweep up a bee or two by the back door or in the kitchen. I started getting worried. I didn't want my shoeless Emma stepping on one. We never saw them alive, but we couldn't figure out where they were coming from. When we called the landlord they suggested maybe a hive was in the fireplace so we tried smoking them out but nothing happened and there were still bees. Then one night while I was bathing Ewan at the kitchen sink I swear one came out to the recessed lighting and hit me, but Donald said that was nonsense, a bee would not be in the lighting. As luck would have it the house next door was up for sale in September and there was a bug inspector next door. We asked if he could take a look around and let us know if he could find our bee problem. As it was we were going on over 2 month of the "where are the bee's coming from" game. He left a note telling us to call him.....he explained where he saw the bees coming and going up between the top floor between our house and the neighbor's house. He said that if the bees were in our walls that it was a big job and would be almost $2000 to get them out. Now the pain of trying to find a reasonable bee contractor to get rid of the bees

It was a process over a month long of having every kind of pest control inspector out giving quotes. In the mean time I learned a ton about bees. We found out that they were in Emma's bedroom wall above her bed. Bees are the only warm blooded insect and only go out on nice days. That if you put your ear up to Emma's wall you could hear them like a loud fan running just on the other side, or you could put your hand on the wall and feel across and the hot spot was where the bees were at. It was crazy. We were told that Emma was safe and that the bees wouldn't bother us. And up to this point they hadn't. We also were told that they were just getting lost in the walls at times and would come out through the recessed lights or light sockets and head strait for a window or glass door to escape. Then they would bang their bodies against the glass until they died...It was really sad. In the end a very great contractor got the job and did an amazing job.

Here are the bee's still in Emma's wall

Almost a million bees were camping out in the wall and five large blades of honeycomb!
The guy explained that the bees had been there for well over a year and had to have spawned at least 2 other colonies in the neighborhood. He did what he could to not kill the bees by gassing them out before removing the honeycomb.
Then he had to clean it all out and spray it down with some special sealant to keep them from ever coming back. A job well done and a big YAY! No more bees!