Don't worry bee happy...

[Jason Housman]

While at work today I got a frantic phone call from my wife. She's crying on the phone saying there are bees all over the house. So I tell her to close all the windows and stay inside and they'll go away. Turns out they are not outside, they're in the house. My cats are chasing them and trying to eat them while she herds them into the basement. She got all the cats in the basement and notices there are even more bees in the basement! I leave work while she tries to call an exterminator. When I pull up to my house I look over and all I see are bees on the picture window in front. All I hear is buzzing when I open the door and they are everywhere!! My wife finally got a hold of an exterminator and said he would come over in about an hour. Because it's memorial day weekend she had to call 18 exterminators to get one to come out. All the others said thay would come on Tuesday. When he got there he walked around and looked at everything. He said we had "zillions" of bees but he could take care of it. They turned out to be honeybees and there were also some carpenter bees eating up my back porch which he took care of too. Oddly enough there was no hive in the house.(He looked for a few hours) We literally got swarmed. He said what likely happened was the queen bee was looking for a place to make a home and came across our house. Why? It's just random. She found a crack in our foundation between the basement window and brick and the rest of the bees followed her in. It was something out of a movie. All the buzzing was scary. Thank god he came out as I don't think my wife and I could have waited until Tuesday for someone to get rid of the bees. Turns out the guy who came was at an engagement party for his son and the only reason he came was because my wife was crying and in such a panic. We plan on writing a letter to the company he works for to thank him and let him know how much it meant to us for him to come out when we really needed it even though he was obviously busy. Just wanted to say that there are some people out there who actually do care and want to help others. Thanks.

 

[Rodger Tellefson]

Glad to hear that everything turned out bee'utiful. Next time call a bee keeper, and light a bunch of candles as the smoke settles them down.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

Glad to hear this man was nice enough to come to your aid. I think writing the letter will be a very nice thing to do under the circumstances...

 

[2]

I agree that writing a letter would be a nice thing to do. People are always quick to write/call when something isn't to their liking, so I am sure some positive feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[Eric Pennal]

Jason,



How did he get rid of the bees?

 

[kil roy]

How did he get rid of the bees?

my guess is that he exterminated them which is a shame but you have to

do what you have to do.

i had the same problem about 10 years ago, the buzzing was so loud you could

hear it through out the whole house.

i called a few bee keepers and they wanted $500-$600 to remove them

and they said they werent responsbile for the damage done to my house. SAY WHAT????

when i got the last guys price i said well i guess the exterminator is cheaper AT $75

with no damage to my house , then he said "YOU CANT DO THAT!!!"

i said "WATCH ME" and hung up the phone.



i didnt want to kill them but i wasnt going to spend that kind of money to have them

removed and risk damage to my house to boot.

 

[Eric Pennal]

If that's the case, from Jason's description, there'd be an awful lot of dead bees in his house. :blink:

 

[Jason Housman]

He didn't exactly exterminate them. He put a bunch in jars to take back to where ever to study them and do other research since the honeybee population is dwindling. He just came in with a vaccuum cleaner and sucked them all up.



I work in the retail business and have to deal with hundreds of customers a day and know the feeling of only getting complaint letters and comments. The few thank you's and positive comments usually take less time to write or say than the negative ones and mean a lot more to me and my employees. I feel it is the least I could do considering the circumstances of everything. I couldn't stay the entire time he was doing his job at my house but my wife said he was one of the nicest people she has met. The company is very fortunate to have someone like that working for them and I think they need to know that.

 

[Jeffrey Travis]

I would send a wedding gift to the son/daughter-in-law when the nuptials do happen, and include a jar of honey.



JT#14

 

[Nelson Atwell]

I used to set off bug bombs in Portugal to get rid of pests. There were no screens on the windows, so when there were too many flies, insects, etc. I would just bomb the house, leave for a few hours and sweep up the remains. Those bug bombs are cheap and effective. I wonder if it would have gotten those bees too?

 

[shawn stonbraker 2]

Had the same thing happen a few years ago to me. We started noticing bees in the house here and there, and I even got stung once or twice. Just happened to be mowing one day and saw a swarm coming from under a board that was used as trim between the wood on the house and the brick foundation. I tried to just spray them but they just seemed to multiply. So we called Terminex and the guy got here and went down into our finished basement and said nest was in our drop ceiling. He used a powder on the inside and outside and told us to give it 24 hours. 24 hours later I was sweeping up thousand and thousands of bees. It was amazing. What they did was come in between the board and the mortor areas and was able to get into the house. Terminex has been great since we started using them to treat the house. They just become a pain when it comes to the termite inspections but that's another story. I doubt a bug bomb would have effective. The powder they used got on the bees and they took it back into the hive. That killed the queen and the rest of them. It's definately not fun to be swarmed by the little pests.

 

[Bill V]

I like Travis's idea...

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Then there is always this approach (lengthy, with big pictures to download, but WELL worth the time):

 

[Jim Reeves]

i watched a guy about 20 years ago move a huge swarm of bees with a pot and a big metal spoon. We were in a camp ground and a huge swarm of honey bees came in and covered a tree right next to where we had a community bonfire going. A guy there asked for a large metal pot and a metal spoon. He walked off about 50 yards to another tree and starts wailing like crazy on the pot with the metal spoon. We thought he was nuts. Then slowly, first just a few, then hundreds, and then what seemed like thousands of bees starting leaving the swarm, and went to the tree next to him. He moved the whole swarm by beating on the pot. He said he had seen someone do the same thing when he was a kid, so he tried it and it worked. Not sure why it worked, but I saw it with my own eyes.