Combs

So, interesting story with this one. I had a family reunion this past summer - mom's side - and while I'm on the beach in North Carolina, I got a call from Sara, my friend who is renting my upstairs. Turns out, she was noticing a butt load of bees flying around the back of the house. It's summer, bees happen.

Fast forward about a week. I'm home. I am walking through my garage and I get bombarded with spider webs. Odd. Then, I notice this buzzing sound, so I look up and there are a couple of bees flying around the light. After I had panic-strickenly dashed into the basement to get away from the bees, I surveyed the situation a little bit deeper to notice that the spiders had created a large network of webs to feast on the hundreds of bees that were now caught in said webs. Oh crap. I hate bees, but I hate spiders even more. I immediately run to the office and jump online to look up bee exterminators. Finding the right exterminator is hard, but when I read this in the FAQs of The Bee Hunter, I knew I had found the right one:

I see bees or yellow-jackets flying in and out of a small hole, gap, crack, or crevice on the outside of my house. How about if I just spray them with some wasp killer from Home Depot and seal that entrance hole shut with caulking, foam, cement, or a stick? Isn't that what you would do anyway?
No. This is the worst response to such a situation - sadly, it's often the most common. You're not sealing them outside, you're trapping them inside - typically by the thousands! The bees
(or more likely, yellow-jackets) will find some other way out which is most often into your home through electric outlets, light fixtures, or vents. When I'm finally called in, the treatment is more time consuming, difficult, and expensive. (I've placed this FAQ first because it's by far the most common I get, and I want to strongly discourage people from putting themselves into such a dangerous situation.)

Yeah, but what if....
Please don't.

Yes, I called a guy calling himself "The Bee Hunter." Wouldn't you? Jim (Bee Hunter) is actually a really cool guy and I still keep in touch with him from time to time. Back to the story, Jim comes out to assess the situation. Low and behold, I have a very large nest of Western Honey Bees. By large, we are talking 30 to 40 thousand! Not only that, but these bees built a massive hive containing gallons upon gallons of honey, in my ceiling no less.

Wait, it gets better. Jim calls me up a couple nights before the removal of the bees. Turns out, one of the local stations was looking for an interesting story on bees and, given the unusual nature of my situation, they decided to come film the removal of the bees in my ceiling. Great. What followed was pretty amazing. It involved a pretty large hole in my ceiling, and wall, and a news story that, to this day, has people recognizing me as "the bee guy."

The Bee Hunter

The Story: