The Bees are Out of the Barn!

Resident expert bee keeper Jeff Clark came by the ranch last Thursday and took a gander at our latest "situation" -- a swarm of honey bees had entered the north wall of the barn through a hole, one used to route an electric cord out to the horse paddock's electric fence charger.

Sensing our panic, Jeff spent a good deal of time helping us understand the immense value of Honey Bees and their present decline due to mites and pesticides. At the end of our visit, my husband and I agreed to nix bug spray in favor of a more natural solution.

Jeff recommended Bee Gone or Bee Dun, commenting that he couldn't recall which one smelled like vomit. Lovely. Friday morning, I drove to Ruhl Bee Supply in Gladstone and purchased a bottle of Bee Dun, an aromatic blend of essential oils used to flush bees out of hives during the honey harvest. Thankfully, Bee Dun exudes a potent almond scent.

Saturday evening, as we were making our first application of Bee Dun to the barn wall, the temperature dipped. Funny thing about bees -- they're not real active when it's cold. This fundamental bee-ism translated into everything taking a whole lot longer than it should have.

For the past four mornings, I've religiously drizzled Bee Dun into the wall and watched as thirty to fifty bees leave the hive.  Most of those same bees have been have been clustered on the barn's outer north wall for several days now.

Today, it finally warmed up and there were a lot of bees on the side of the barn. According to Jeff, the swarm will continue to cluster on an exterior wall until the scout bees have identified another home.

I'm glad we found a natural, non-toxic way to evict our unwelcome guests. I wish them well and I hope they'll find a good home.