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Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Bees!

 I said I had bees in my wall. I do. And they are honeybees. They moved into the hole where the German Yellowjackets had residence in 2017. Shame on me for not plugging that hole after I killed those monsters. I pretty much forgot. But 3 days ago I had 25 dead bees on my kitchen floor. I found them just before I went to bed and didn't go hunting until the next day. But as soon as I opened the door, I knew what had happened.
bees flying around a hole


I got ahold of a local person who is considered a bee expert. He came out yesterday, and again today.
two people in an unmowed lawn


Today he brought a thermal imager. He was trying to determine where they are making the hive. The choices are: in the wall behind the refrigerator, in the space between the first floor and the basement, in the wall of the large bedroom downstairs. They are definitely not in the crawl space. That didn't seem likely since it's farther away, but was a possibility.
man with thermal imager


But he couldn't get a definitive reading. My choices are: start tearing out walls, kill them, ignore them for the summer because without treatment for the mites that kill bees over winter they will almost certainly die. Sheesh! I don't want to kill honeybees.

I am not deathly allergic, but if I get stung more than once, I'll probably need to go to the ER for observation. I guess I'm just not going to use that door this summer. Annoying, but doable.

I couldn't get a good answer about whether having 50 pounds of honey in the wall was going to be a problem.

I'm not thrilled, but I'm not going to kill honeybees unless something becomes critical.

See German Yellowjacket- It's What's for Dinner

4 comments:

Ann said...

Hope you can come up with a solution. A couple years ago I had hornets going in a small crack by the foundation.

Sharkbytes said...

Yeah, nasty

The Furry Gnome said...

Hope you get this sorted out without killing the bees.

The Oceanside Animals said...

Java Bean: "Ayyy, our Dada avoids killing honeybees too! He even rescues them from the spider's web when he sees them in there! I think the spider is going to come seek revenge on him at some point ..."