beadworkbybetsy

Bees moved into our wall on June 4th.  That night I googled and learned a lot about our options.  Most bee saving outfits come in, cut through your stucco and collect the hive.  On June 4th our new stucco had just been completed.  We didn't want anyone cutting a hole in our stucco.  We still tried to be environmental and called up a bee keeper on June 5th.  They said they could be at our house by 5 pm and it would cost $150.  For what?  They said they would poison the bees and cut a hole in the outside wall to clean it out.

We decided we could poison the bees ourselves and then we could cut a hole in the interior wall and do the repair.  After being in our home for 13 years we feel we have more expertise in the area of patching drywall.  Or at least my hubby does.  He poisoned the bees on June 19 (poison I bought from the Orange County Farm Supply).  We thought it would take a couple days to reach the queen, but it didn't.  Pete had to poison again.  Finally we saw no more activity going in or out of the hole.  A roof repairman closed up the hole on July 1.  So that means the bees were only building for about 3 weeks before the poison took effect.  It is amazing how much they built and how many drones were waiting to hatch in such a small amount of time.  The honeycomb is about 2 feet long.  In some places it was already as deep as the wall would allow.

This shows some of the honey glistening inside the honey comb.

I got to do demo.  I misjudged on my first attempt.  That just meant a bigger drywall hole to patch.  We started the clean up on July 9th, had the hole patched by the 11th, but we didn't get to the texture or painting until the following weekend.  For us to start a project and complete it in less than two weeks is amazing.  Of course we had to get it done so that Luke and Elijah could have their room functional again.