A report from Les
Back behind our modern (1960’s) detached
garage is the original 1909 Carriage House that’s big enough to hold - let’s say
. . . a VW Beetle. It was originally built for horse drawn carriages which were
the typical SUV’s of the day. Later on the homeowner may have had a Ford Model
T which also fit nicely in the same space. When we bought the place we could
see the carriage house was warped and the outside siding was swollen, but we
just figured that was a sign of being 104 years old. The day before we took
possession, an exterminator was called in by the previous owners to treat the
carriage house. They discovered that the walls had apparently been the place of
choice for a swarm of honey bees . . . for years . . . maybe
decades.
It seems the bulging walls were not caused
by the affects of weathering on those aging boards at all, but that the walls
were full of honeycomb! He advised that all this be removed before the bees
came back in spring. He said “they WILL come back.”
A Whole New Meaning to “Honey
Do’s”
A friend came
over this past Monday to lend a helping hand at whatever I wanted to work on, so
we did some debris cleanup and stacked boards from last week’s shed demo site.
Then I decided it would be a good use of his time to help me tear out the bee
hive wall on the carriage house – after all, spring was upon us and I knew the
bees would be returning to Capistrano. No bees were in site and it was a good
day to execute the plan.
We tore off most
of the back wall of the carriage house which was the side where Bee Ground Zero
was. We couldn’t believe our eyes as we unveiled a ginormous hive that was
about 3 feet wide, 3 feet tall, and 6 inches thick, o-o-o-o-o-ozing honey out
the bottom. Too bad the hive had been treated back in December because this
mother-load of localized honey was worth a fortune. We tossed the boards into
the trash trailer.
We had no other
option but to pull the honeycomb out by hand (with gloves of course). Based on
how heavy a chunk about the size of our hand was, we estimated the hive to be
100 pounds or more. I never saw so much golden honey, and it broke my heart
because I’ve been buying locally produced honey this past year and I know how
expensive it is. After a couple of hands-full of this sticky ooze, we realized
we had a problem. We had to do something special to dispose of it because it
was too messy to try and bag it, and we couldn’t just dump it in the garbage can
or in the trash trailer. Heck . . . it would go everywhere because it was
already going everywhere!
How About a Honey Hole
The best thing we
could come up with was to dig a hole . . . a big hole. There was enough
hive-n-honey to fill a wheel barrow, so by the time it all got dumped in and
covered over, it looked like we buried a person. Sounds like a murder mystery
for sure: you know, a recent grave located out-of-sight behind the old shed,
having the suspicious markings of some kind of foul play. Well, there was a
mass killing that took place when the exterminator killed the colony of bees.
So, I guess a grave is fitting.
Thankfully, honey
washes off easily so our gloves, shoes and tools were saved in the aftermath.
Not a trace of guilt left. Except for one thing. The
trailer.
Calling All Bees
Yep, they
returned the very next day . . . with friends. Apparently they sent out the
memo on beehive.com to all available honey bees to come back and
start a harassment campaign on these murderers. Remember the sticky/oozy boards
we tossed in the trailer? Well, they seem to be a kind of “batman logo” in the
honey bee sky. The trailer is buzzing with activity. I’m wondering if I can
safely haul this bee hive on wheels to the landfill and unload it fast enough
without getting stung several thousand times? J
No comments:
Post a Comment