From the archives: This story was last updated in April 2019.
When homeowners noticed bees by the window, their suspicions were finally confirmed—they had a bee problem.They called pest control, who located a beehive inside one of the walls. They tried to eradicate the beehive using pesticide, but that did not work out. Fortunately, The Bartlett Bee Whisperer was called in next to do his thing, and thankfully, the hive was saved.
David Glover, an expert in moving bee colonies, arrived at the house in Germantown, Tennessee, to ascertain the exact location of the beehive.
“Every once in a while I get a call that makes me cringe,” Glover wrote on his Facebook page.
Glover opened a hole in the wall by removing one of the bricks without disturbing the colony, and lo and behold—behind the brick was honeycomb!
By using a heat monitor on the wall where the hive was, he was startled when he realized the actual size of the hive.
He discovered the entrances behind the bricks in the wall where they were entering via a weep hole and through a gap in the bricks in the corner under a window.
Glover was faced with a challenging task.
“I prefer to be minimally invasive when removing honey bees from buildings. I don’t like taking out bricks. Will the mortar chip out, or will the bricks crumble?”
Bees are extremely territorial, and with such a massive hive, they would angrily defend it to the death. That’s why Glover uses smoke to calm the bees down.
One of the reasons smoke is effective is that the bees would associate the smoke with fire, which puts them in survival mode rather than attack mode.
Glover had no choice but to remove the bricks—carefully keeping the structure of the hive intact.
The colony was proving to be humongous as the wax was being incrementally exposed the more he pulled the bricks away.
Once the entire hive was exposed, Glover was speechless.
“This is one of the largest single pieces of comb I’ve ever seen!”
Glover calmly removed the entire hive, which held two flat combs.
The queen was already dead due to pesticide, but the 13 capped queens were rescued from the wall. The combs were ingeniously structured and perfectly protected from the elements—they were not overly attached to the bricks, making them relatively easy to extricate.
The astonished homeowner watched on as all this was taking place, keeping a safe distance behind some bushes during the procedure.
Apparently, the hive took the bees around two years to build.
And it took Glover five hours to finish his job. His team then put all the bricks back in place.
Unfortunately, the honey was spoiled by the pesticide and had to be disposed of.
“The brood combs’ bees were repurposed into a new hive,” Glover wrote. “Think forced evacuation but you get to keep the furniture. They are still in my backyard and appear to have adjusted to their new accommodations.”
Glover says he talks to the bees, hence the name The Bee Whisperer.
“I talk to the bees as I work,” he says. “I know they don’t understand English, but helps me stay calm.”
Hats off to The Bee Whisperer, who saved this incredible hive and all its hardworking little inhabitants!
