BEES!!

What's all the national uproar about bees missing from their hives? I had more than plenty living in my house. Of course, being a ranger I figured we could live in harmony with them. They weren't Africanized after all. I could walk right past them and they hardly noticed me. In fact they kept bumping into me if I stood in their fligth path. Well, it doesn't take a genious to figure out the next part of the story....I get stung. OK, the bees have to go.

I spend two days spraying gallons of soapy water on them - killing large numbers - each time thinking I've done some major damage. They kept showing up in full force the next day, and this while it is still cold out, so they probably aren't out in full force. So I try to stop up the cracks where they were getting into the area under our living room windows. That just got them mad. All the angry buzzing scared the boys, so it became clear it was time to call in the big guns.

OK, the bees are gone for good. At least they aren't alive anymore - they're still inside the wall there. Well, the windows were just two very large sheets of glass. Hardly what anyone would call a window. They needed to come out anyhow. Plus the window unit comes out from the house, but doesn't go all the way to the ground. There is a seat-type area inside. Time to take it out and remove the hive before the warm weather comes and the honey drips out of the hive and attracts insects or other bees. I've got pictures of the rebuilding of the window area and the new window - I'll put those up soon. This is how thick and large the hive was. Fortunately, the honey hadn't leaked all over. The combs were about 2 or 2 1/2 inches thick and as deep as the space allowed. They filled the first space entirely before starting into the next space...The comb inside the next space shows what the combs looked like. I had to use plastic grocery bags outside my gloves to pick them out, and I still got my gloves all full of honey. It was a mess, but not a horrible mess. And it gave me another project to do (like I needed that right now).