Bees In the Barn!

Last spring I noticed a swarm of bees gathered by the back corner of our barn.  I noticed them because I was working in the pasture and could hear the swarming sound they were making and followed them in.  Not knowing what to do I asked around the neighborhood and was instructed to call a bee hive removal service.  After calling three local services I was told the average cost was about $200.00 to extract and/or kill the bees and that would not include the cost of repairing the barn wall once it was torn out.  Well, I didn't have $200+ dollars so I continued to ask around about how I could do this myself.  In the meantime I just kind of hoped they would 'go away' but, of course they did not.  They continued to grow and grow and by mid summer I had a pretty good swarm going and they were becoming more and more aggressive as time went on.  So I had to do something.  Did not want to kill them, in fact I would have preferred to harvest the honey but what does one do?  It was either me or the bees so....bees had to go.

First, with the help of my good friend Carl, we waited until night time, when the bees were quiet and settled in for the night and sprayed the opening of the hive, which was located between the wall of the barn, with Bengal roach spray, something the feed store said was sure to kill them.  It did, we didn't get stung and for the next two days, no more bee activity.  Great!  Seemed to have worked, that was easy!....NOT!

Couple of days later the bees were back and angry.  I tried to do this same thing a couple more times with the same results.  Further research told me that unless I tore the wall down and removed the hive, the bees would continue to return.  Perfect, now I have to get up close and personal with a swarm of  20,000-50,000 bees.  (According to the internet, once you see a swarm outside the wall that's approximately how big the hive is).  And at this point there is actually honey dripping down the inside of the wall.  I felt sorry for the bees but...

So, again with the help of Carl, we sprayed the nest down good one evening and when we couldn't hear any buzzing around in the wall, we proceeded to tear the wall down.  I can't say I was very brave about all of this.  Mostly I stood with one foot in and one foot out of the door and started to bolt for cover a couple of times while Carl courageously moved on in.

Once inside was this huge bee hive, dripping with honey.  It was so cool to see it.  Some of it was newer, golden and plump with little baby bees inside but some of it was old, dark and swarming with maggots!  This part really stunk.  We had to scrape the hive off of the wall and then hose everything down and dispose of the remnants.   The following are some pictures of us removing the hive behind the wall:

Removing the wall

Behind the top wall

Removing the bottom half of the wall

The total hive

Up close view of the good part of the hive

Inside the hive

Even more inside

Maggots inside the old part of the hive

The old, nasty part of the hive after we've knocked it down

It was a tough job but somebody had to do it!

 This all took place over the course of a couple of hot, sweaty days and nights but the deed was done and the bees are gone.  I think they just moved across the pasture as I can see bees buzzzing around a bush out there so I may have to battle them again someday.  I hope not.  Either way it was an interesting adventure and I must say I learned quite a bit about bees and bee disposal.  Just wish I could have learned more about collecting honey.  It could be done but only with a bee suite and smoking them to calm them and you still don't want them in an area that you are going to be using.  So, if you should ever have a pesky bee hive nearby and need some help in getting rid of it..........don't call me!  I hope I don't have to do this again.