Bee-gone!

Wow! What a night! Emily from  AZ Queen Bee came out last night about 8 PM and took care of our bee problem, which turned out to be more extensive than we had thought. The whole extraction process took about an hour and a half.  She said that normally wild hives have about 10,000 bees, but estimated there were about 50,000 in the hive under our Bridge to Nowhere (which is going somewhere soon...most likely to the landfill!) There was not much honey, but a lot of bees, eggs, and larvae in the hive. The queen apparently took the Edenic command to "be fruitful and multiply" quite seriously. Fortunately, these were fairly docile creatures, as bees go.

After suiting up, Emily used a vacuum device to suck up the bees into bee boxes for transport to their new home. She wound up filling three bee boxes. Here's what they look like:

She then upended the bridge so that she could scrape out the honeycombs underneath. Practically the whole bottom surface of the bridge was covered in honeycomb. Here's a picture of her holding up a section of it:

Mike was a little more daring than I was in, and got in close enough to take some pictures and a short video of the bees swarming the underside of the bridge. Here's a screen shot taken from the video, which turned out much better than the still shots did:

And here's the video:

Oddly enough, Mike didn't get stung, even though he got in closer than I did. I got stung once on the leg and decided not to go any closer. BTW, if you get stung, take the stinger out as quickly as possible, ice it for several minutes, then put toothpaste on it. This is the least painful bee sting I've ever had.

Emily said that it might take several days for bee stragglers to dissipate. This morning, we saw several dozen flying around, I assume looking for their former home. She also told us that "robber bees" from several miles around might wander in after catching the scent of the disturbed honey and wax. 

If you're ever in need of a beekeeper, I highly recommend the AZ Queen Bee! She is very knowledgeable and professional. I found the experience very interesting and educational.