Monthly Archives: March 2015

Knock, Knock, Knock…

Paxton about popped a cork last night 5:30(ish).  We were sitting quietly in the living room.  MFH (My Favorite Husband) was off on a run when all of a sudden somebody knocked on our front door.

Paxton, did his Paxton best to sound big and terrifying.

The person at the door took quite a few steps back when he saw Paxton come flying to the door.  Paxton had his hackles raised and he was putting on quite the show!

It was one of our neighbors.  Poor man.  Paxton was scaring him away.  Haha!  Poor guy.

I told Paxton to “STAY!” as I quickly scooted through the front door, trying to keep him from getting out, too.

I had to walk almost to the end of my driveway because my neighbor had backed waaaay far away from the house by this time.  He wasn’t taking any chances with my pudgy pooch.

Once I got to him, he said he was having a “Bee problem” by his front door and didn’t know what to do.  I tried to get him to describe the bees.  I wanted to know what kind of bees we were discussing.

He shrugged and said, “Bees!”

We went around the corner to his house and sure enough, he had a honey bee swarm by his front door!  This was a brand new house.  We had watched it be built and the contractors cut a LOT of corners and now it was showing.

They had two large pillars put in by the front door.  They were purely decorative.  They offered no support.  They were hollow!  They also didn’t reach to the top of the front of the house/porch so the contractor had shimmied in a few pieces of brick.  The brick wasn’t even mortared in.  It was just laying there to hide the face that the pillars were too short.

Hmmmm…

Seeing as how the pillars were short AND hollow, the bees were inside the pillar making themselves a cozy new home.

Rats!

Seeing as honey bees do not wear name tags and you cannot microchip them like you can your dog or cat, we didn’t know if they were our bees or the bees belonging to the person at the top of the “Hill.”  Either way, those bees needed to go.

We do not own the equipment to get bees out of a structure.  It’s really just a fancy vacuum but we don’t have one.  We are resourceful, though!

MFH and I loaded up a ladder, a few flashlights, an extension cord and the shop vac and went over to the neighbors house.

We were able to suck some of the bees out of the pillar but there were a lot of unhappy bees buzzing their displeasure at the bottom of the pillar.  This was not good.  It was almost dark by this time.  The time when honey bees are snug in their hives for the night and people are getting ready for bed.

We called it a night.

We are going to go back today and check to see how many bees are still there.  If we can get the queen, all the other bees will leave.  Getting the queen is the problem.

MFH and I both agree that we should just slide that pillar out, lay it down and scrape any or all comb out of the pillar and then suck the bees out of there.  THAT, we DO have the equipment to do.

What a bother.

Our neighbor was very nice about it but I feel terrible.  Like I said, I don’t know if is our bees or the ones from the guy on the “hill.”  Either way, this man and his family should not have to deal with naughty honey bees living in the pillar of his front porch.

Stay tuned!   🙂