Just one beehive can produce 100 lbs of honey in a year, a lesson we learned the hard way when a bee-suited man removed 20 lbs of the golden stuff from behind a panel of our hot tub. We were lucky—the egg-laden hive was ready to hatch a new generation of worker bees, who likely would have set up a new home 10 feet from their birthplace. The dog, who had refused to go into the western half of the backyard since the bees established dominance, would have been beside herself.
Obviously, with a three-month-old hive humming away under our noses, we were pretty slow on the uptake. Sure, we noticed more bees in that part of the yard, but it didn't seem like anything serious. It was the dog that brought them to our attention. One day, she burst through the dog door, an angry bee riding her rear straight into the house. There must have been more encounters like this, because once in a while, she'd have a swollen eye or toe. Eventually, the dog didn't even venture into that half of the backyard. She'd pull up sharply at the avocado tree with a wistful glance at the ball we'd thrown for her on the other side. As a general rule, we don't like assaulting creepy crawlies that take up residence in the backyard. But no one messes with our dog, so I started looking for bee-removal services.
Breaking Out in Hives
It's no secret that bee colonies are declining, a crisis with the potential for severe environmental impact, especially for agriculture, which relies on cross-pollination. So, I was surprised to find that standard bee-removal service leaves no survivors.
It took a little digging, but I eventually found a company called Wilson's Honey and Bee Removal that will transfer bees to a new home. Naturally, this is the more expensive option—but we couldn't bring ourselves to kill nature's best pollinators. The next day, I greeted the bee man, who glanced at the line of bees streaming steadily in and out of the spa. "Oh yeah, you see that?" he asked. "When they have a highway like that, there's definitely a hive."
As he pulled on his bee suit over his jeans and T-shirt, he chatted pleasantly about some of his more recent jobs. Apparently, he'd pulled 200 lbs of honey out of a Hollywood celebrity's mansion, requiring the star to build a whole new wall. I could feel my eyes bug out. Before this, my understanding of beehives had come from Winnie the Pooh cartoons, which showed them as small, endearing shapes the size of birdhouses. It had never occurred to me that one could actually bring down the house.
The bee man pulled a protective mesh veil over his face, then wrapped duct tape around his wrists to ensure no bees got between his sleeves and his gloves. I had expected him to arrive in a full Hazmat suit complete with oxygen tank, because there is no way I would go near a bee highway without such a thing. But the final product resembled a painter's suit, and a well-worn one at that, with tears and rips barely patched with more duct tape. He grinned at me through the mesh, then told me he was going to walk over to test whether these were killer bees.
I put on my brave face. "Excuse me? Did you say killer bees?"
"Oh, yeah," he said. "Most of the bees in Southern California are killers now." He pointed over to the spa and said that if the bees tried to attack him instead of protecting the hive, that would confirm it. Pretty soon, he walked into the fray, and immediately, agitated bees flurried around him, angrily head-butting his veil and painter's suit. He got a distance away from them, but a few stragglers persisted. As he casually swatted them away, he told me, "Yep. Killers."
Killer Curiosity
Getting stung by one killer bee is not going to kill you—but if you incur the wrath of a swarm, you can die from the effects of hundreds of stings. Alternating between terror of killer bees and guilt over letting our dog share a yard with them for so long, I stood in the far corner of the yard with my camera to watch the bee man pull the side panel off of the spa. He explained that I should be fine at that distance because they'd be concentrating their wrath on him—but if a bee started head-butting me on the forehead, I'd better head inside. Apparently, that's the warning signal before the attack, as stinging is fatal for a bee and, therefore, a last resort.
It didn't take long before a disgruntled bee gave me the warning in no uncertain terms, and I fled behind the screen door to watch as the bee man used a shop vac to suck in as many live bees as possible. "The live removal still applies to killer bees?" I asked, not wanting to exterminate them but less sure we were doing the planet a favor.
"Oh, yeah," he said, "with the exception of the queen." Killer bees are still honey bees and play a vital role in the pollination process. The bees from our hot tub would be trucked out to a bee farm in the California desert where they'd be placed in a hive with a European queen bee. By cross-breeding the bees with regular honey bees, their violent streak would be watered down in future generations.
Honey Dos—and Don'ts
Between bouts of running the shop vac, the bee man scraped out the honey comb with its 20 lbs of honey inside. He stuffed the side panel of the spa full of cotton-candy-colored insulation, then screwed the panel shut again. He poked insulation in every gap he could find on the other sides of the spa, then waited for more bees to cluster so he could collect the stragglers. He told me that we'd see bee traffic for the next four to ten days, as many bees would still be out collecting pollen, but eventually they'd get the message and move on.
Before he packed up his truck, he handed me a plastic grocery bag with a chunk of honey comb from our very own hive. I proudly carried it to the kitchen sink, settled up with the bee man, and called my mother-in-law with a full report of the adventure.
Halfway through the conversation, I heard buzzing and tried to ignore it. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one bee struggling through the plastic bag. No big deal. Then there were two sitting on top of the bag. Then four. Now it felt like a horror movie.
If my mother-in-law hadn't brought me back to my senses, I would still be standing there agape as a zillion bees took up residence in the kitchen. With all bee compassion drained from me, I bashed the bag with the best weapon at hand (the spaghetti pot) and hurled the whole mess into the outside trash. It was a low point for this live-bee-removal supporter, and I hoped this was the final test of my loyalties. After all, how many hives can one house have? Surely, one is enough.
Epilogue
"Uh-oh," said my husband, as we watched a few bees hover in the general vicinity of the spa last week. We'd been seeing them for a few days and hoped it was just a fluke. But as we saw ten or more of them entering a hole in the front panel, we knew we had to summon the bee man. He arrived yesterday with his shop vac and cleared out a hive from behind another panel of the spa. This time, the bees weren't killers, and there was only a little bit of honey, probably only two weeks' worth. The bee man took special pains to ensure the honey comb he saved for us was bee-free, and we can now enjoy the one benefit of a backyard bee infestation.
As the bee man left, I tried to hide my dismay when he handed me the refrigerator-magnet version of his business card—the kind you put up for services, like pizza delivery, that you use all of the time. As much as we appreciate the good work the bee man does and would gladly recommend him to friends and neighbors, we hope we never have to call that number again! With an extra layer of pink insulation protecting the spa, bees won't be getting in any time soon—hopefully, that means they'll buzz off for good.
Wilson's Honey and Bee: ****
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