Two beekeepers responded to a desperate family and removed a hive of bees from their home.
The bees found a hole in a window frame on the second floor to enter.
The queen developed a hive for at least three years in a 24 inch stud space. Two sheets of comb went from underneath the second story window down to just above the baseboard at the bottom of a stairs on the first floor.
The comb and bees were removed from inside the house by cutting out the plaster, wood lath and each horizontal 14 inch board that was nailed to the studs. The comb was cut the size of a normal frame and then rubber-banded into the brood frames.
The bottom of the comb in the wall is shown here. The tape shows it was a little over eight feet.
Four hive bodies were filled with the “cut comb.” The length of the hive was over eight feet long as shown in one of the pictures. The remaining bees were collected at night with a bee vac on three other nights.
The kitchen with hive and bee vac. Several pounds of bees were removed by the vac.Finally, the upstairs floor and the kitchen were cleaned and floor scrubbed even though plastic was used to protect the floors. The hole in the window frame was caulked shut so a new swarm could not enter.
One of the hives after it was removed from the house is shown below.
