Fragrance:Favorite

Honeycomb

I promise this is the last of the bee posts but I couldn't resist sharing these pictures of the honeycomb that was taken from our walls. These were provided by the company that so kindly took on the task of bee removal.

Cloud:Magnificent

Survivor

This is the only thing that survived the Armageddon-esque hail storm that ravaged our garden this past Sunday. Seriously, folks, there isn't a leaf or flower that escaped the violent pelting of hail the size of gumballs. The noise was deafening and for half an hour I thought our entire house was going to be beaten into the Earth.

Unbeelievable

So, the bee removal took place this past weekend, which I am now referring to as The Weekend From Hell. The bee crew showed up bright and early at 9 am in good spirits believing this was going to be a no-brainer in bee removal.

Here they are tearing off the roof to our bay window, secure in their previous experience that this is where the hive and the honeycomb would be.

As it turns out, the hive was living in THE BASE of the bay window, the entrance just happened to be at the roof line. So the whole operation was moved indoors to our bedroom. The room we SLEEP in. After plastic and paper were covering all remaining furniture and the closet door secured they began tearing apart the 80 year old lathe and plaster beneath our window. There used to be a horrid built-in against that wall which we removed seconds after signing on the house. Apparently the previous owners thought it would be a good idea to line the floor inside the built-in with urine soaked carpet. The smell was unbelievable. The point of that little story is to explain the bits of tape on the wall which are covering the ragged holes left from the railroad ties they used to attach the built-in to the wall.

Early stages of wall removal.

OH, HOLY SHIT!

There aren't even WORDS for this. The sound and smell were so overpowering and once they kicked on the vacuum I was out of there. Not that changing rooms made much of a difference. That infernal Bee Vacuum was on for a solid 6 HOURS.

After most of the hive had been removed, they started chiseling away at the honeycomb and before you ask, NO, we did not keep any of it. It was the most revolting stuff and besides they needed to take it for the bees, something about feeding. After the honeycomb was outta there they rubbed everything down with almond extract to "descent" the space so new bees would not be attracted to the same area, they sprayed a hornet/wasp killer, then stuffed our walls with formaldehyde-free insulation and my sanity returned.

From start to finish this whole process took a little over 8 hours and our bedroom STILL smells like almond extract. Overpowering, ALMOND scent.

Dowry

Manager's Special

If It's Not One Thing...

Good News: We found a company that specializes in removing bees without demolishing our living quarters. They are coming next Friday to "assess" the situation and their quote was actually reasonable.

Bad News: With all the recent rainfall the two windows at the front of the house have started leaking. So we have had an eclectic collection of receptacles gathering all the drips, dribbles, and drops which can be heard from every corner of the house. yippee.