What All The Buzz Is About

I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yesterday it finally did, but it was not what I was expecting at all.

When Corey and I bought this house 2 years ago, there was a massive bee hive inside of one of the exterior walls of the living room. It's the reason we named this house Honeyhome (a shortening of The Honeycomb Home). We had to have the bees killed, though, which was sad. And we thought they had removed the honeycomb, but later we found out that they had opened the wrong wall void, and that the majority of the honeycomb remained intact inside the wall. In the summer time, when that wall receives the full heat of the sun, that corner of our living room smells strongly of honey.

Yesterday afternoon, to our horror, the bees came back. The same wall had filled up with honeybees. Lots and lots of honeybees. We immediately called the only other exterminator in town, hoping he might do a better job than the first guys. He agreed to come out last night, saying he likes to tackle bees after dark when they are less active. When he got here, he was totally prepared with an entire bee keeper's suit and hat, and a big bottle of bug chemicals. But there were no bees!

So it turns out that the bees hadn't actually moved in yet! They had all gone home to their original hive at the end of the day. The exterminator said that the bees had most likely been scouting for locations to move their hive to, and our house was apparently at the top of the list. One bee had found the wall void, and brought more and more bees back to check the place out. When the first exterminator 2 years ago "sealed the wall" all he actually did was shove a small piece of pipe insulation under the siding without making sure if it even fit, and called it a day. The wall void was still wide open for any bees to come in, and come in they did. So our new exterminator sprayed bug killer into the wall void, and told us to seal up every crack so the bees couldn't get back in. Corey went around our entire house with a flashlight, a mirror, and a can of spray foam, and sealed up every hole under the siding he could find. Then he nailed a big board across the bottom of the open wall void and sealed completely around it.

This morning, I put my ear to the wall to see if I could hear the bees. Silence truly is golden! But while the bees can't actually get inside the wall now, this hasn't stopped them from coming to the house. I can hear them buzzing in our a/c unit while I'm typing this. Hopefully a big swarm won't show up later today! Corey took some video to show the exterminator, so we will be uploading that later today or tomorrow for everyone to see.

They say, "When it rains, it pours." I never thought bees would be pouring into the wall like that, though. Life is such a crazy, unpredictable thing! All I can do is laugh!