I Will Have Some Bees, Please!

I was able to witness a unique event a few days ago. It's something that I had never seen before, at least not quite so up close and personal. The house next door to me apparently had a "bee" issue that needed to be taken care of. Honey bees had taken up residence within the brick walls of the neighbor's vacation home. It is generally only used when the owner's come down for vacation, so sits empty a good deal of the time. During their last trip down, a few months back, they noticed sounds coming from within the walls and realized they had a bee issue.

They attempted to take care of it themselves, at that time, but were unsuccessful. They then hired a bee exterminator to take care of it for them, who was also unsuccessful. Professional bee keepers were then hired to get the job done. They came out, removed part of the brick wall, to take out the honeycombs and flush the colony out. They weren't there to kill them, but rather to "relocate" them.

I certainly didn't want them relocated to my back yard! While that was, of course, never the intention, as the bees left the inside of the house, they decided to swarm into our back yard and gather up on one of our trees. It was quite a site to see a "bee tornado" form and then see them land on the largest tree in our back yard.