Hey Karen, you didn't miss it, because I didn't tell how we found out we had bees in our quarters.
We noticed a swarm of bees up above the quarter's entrance and we went out to look at what or where they were trying to get in and noticed a little hole about an inch and a half just below one of the boards right above the entrance and watched them go into that hole. We also noticed they were congregating near the window of the laundry room and I called an exterminating company who came out and told us exactly where the hives were and he said he could smell the honey in the walls. He estimated they had been in the walls from five to seven years; however, we had never noticed them swarming like that before, but the vantage point there is not well seen from our windows so wouldn't have noticed them. We had seen a few bees in front of the garage, and my husband had sprayed them before, and looked inside the garage to see if they were in but didn't find any.
The east side of the quarters is brick and he found they were getting in at the downspout and drain, which they removed from the wall and took the brick off about two feet before the drain and to the corner of the building. Probably took out a four by four group of bricks and removed a large amount of honeycombs.
Luckily we had some bricks taken up when we had the back yard landscaped and they matched the house, so were able to use those for repairs. They are not quite through closing that hole as we have had so much rain here, but hopes to have all the work done by the weekend.
The other side of the quarters is wood and took out about a three by six foot piece there. We had them take off the whole length of those boards and replaced with new lumber as they said they found a few spots of dry rot. They checked all the wood on that side and found no other trouble spots.
The west side had the most number of bees and it looked like there were many hundreds of them when they first opened that side up. The back yard was buzzing with bees and they were flying up against the house windows looking for a place to land. We sat in the breakfast room and watched out that window to see how they did their work. It was very interesting to watch and he did bring the Queen bees from both hives to the window so we could see them. The west side one was large and very fat, but the other side she was much smaller, I think because the east side hive was younger than the west side one. Having treated them, they will come back each year to inspect to see they haven't returned again. He brought us several pieces of honeycomb to the door and we tasted it and it was sweet and pure honey, so good tasting. Also told us he would bring us some more honey when what they got was all cleaned up of bees.
The exterminator man told us he used to only work about three to four months with bees, but now is working year round to rid houses and trees of hives. That is scary to think about in a city our size. |
