Bees Were Removed from Our Point Loma House and They Weren’t Given a Death Sentence

By Bonnie

What comes to mind when you think of bees?

That they are dying out? The lack of bees pollinating will negatively affect our planet?

Then how did I get stung by that lone bee at Montano de Oro State Park last fall, sending me into a tailspin looking for antihistamines before my leg swelled.

And why over a three week span were my husband and I finding one to three bees dead – or half way there – every other night in the upstairs bedroom of our Point Loma home?

I had nonchalantly noticed the first insect seeking refuge behind the TV on the carpet dead as a door-nail. It made me pause, but didn’t alarm me.

Two days later, I heard a buzzing that I expected to be a fly, but I surveyed the ceiling and identified a bee frantically circling the room. As I got up to escape its threatening sting, I noticed another bee dead on the window sill. Not taking chances, I closed the upstairs door and beelined (pun intended) with my pillow to sleep downstairs.

So it went on like this for a week or so with every other day two to three bees showing up in my bedroom.  I did not want to take a chance getting stung and contemplated the danger I would be in if I tried to scoop it out and release it alive into the wild.

My heart sank with guilt. How could I kill a bee? Or ask another family member to get rid of it for me?

I had to find out if my neighbors were having a similar problem. All said no, but many had stories of their beehive removal accounts from when they were growing up.

I knew something had to be done, so I put an inquiry on next-door.com for suggestions. Fortunately, a couple of neighbors referred me to removal services.

I called the first recommendation immediately. They said they could come over and give me an estimate, but if they did not find any bees, they would have to charge us for their house call. So as instructed, I began to inspect around the outside of the house.  I did not see or hear any trace. They said that I would see bees buzzing around the area to signify where they were getting in. But I didn’t see any bees.

Searching for bees in my bedroom became part of my daily routine.

And I got used to the idea that they were going to appear. I inspected for cracks and tears in the screens and windows and skeptically I eyed the can-lights in the ceiling. They had to be coming in from somewhere. I imagined  that my walls were filled with swarms of bees banging into their restricted space. And imagined hearing their eerie buzz.

Photos by Bonnie

When I found a dead bee on my pillow, that was the last straw.

I called another removal company.  A man and woman showed up, donned their bee removal costumes and within five minutes located where the queen had made her home and had invited what they determined to be about 100 thousands of her extended family.

They said they would call in a few days to let me know when they had an opening in their schedule. They explained that the process of getting the hive would be to cut a giant trash can lid size hole in the drywall of our ceiling – then search around to locate the hive, take it out and temporarily tape up the hole. Then they would return three weeks later to make sure none of the bees were left behind. Next we would have the ceiling repaired and painted.

In the meantime I went back to next-door.com to see who else was recommended and called Aliza’s Bee Removal.  He explained that he would not cut a hole in our ceiling, as he did not want to see everybody panic running and screaming throughout the house while the bees were chasing them.

Instead he would cut a hole in the roof. That sounded a lot better to us. He earned our trust by explaining his process in detail. He expected that it would take about 4 hours. It was especially important to us that he would take the live bees to an area in Valley Center without killing them.

We decided that he would start the job the following morning – to ensure he would have enough light to finish the job. He came exactly when he said he would with his son. They efficiently removed the hive, repaired the roof and even took pictures of each step along the way so we could see the process.

Photo provided by Aliza’s Bee Removal

We saw the picture of the honeycomb and asked if we could have any of the honey, but  he explained that there was no honey as they had not been there long enough. They had been there about three weeks to a month, exactly when they started warning us that they were living on top of us.

From our phone conversation, I had particularly liked that he questioned why the other company was going to have to come back to check for bees in 3 weeks. He guaranteed that he was going to take his bees and they were not going to come back.

Well, it was clarified at the end of his job, that he meant those bees would not come back. But he hoped another swarm would not.

Hopefully he plugged the spot – and our bees haven’t advertised to other swarms-

“a great place with a view to make honey; owners will pay hundreds of dollars to safely relocate you and your tens of thousands of relatives”.

As of this writing – they haven’t.