For Neil

[Amelia]

Church Has 1 Million Bees, Honey in Walls

July 7, 2005

KNOX, Pa. (AP) - One could say that St. Mark United Church of Christ is bee-deviled. The church in Clarion County, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh, has been infested with bees in its walls for about seven years. The church tried an exterminator and that didn't work. Now the problem has gotten so bad that honey oozes through its walls.

The church has hired McCool's Wildlife Removal of Rocky Grove to remove the honey, seal the damaged walls _ and relocate an estimated 1 million bees to a local bee keeper.

Eric McCool, who owns the business, said it typically takes about a day to remove bees from an infested building, but the church is so badly infested it will take three or four days.

The bees aren't crazy about the move. McCool has been stung more than 100 times this week.

"I ended up going to the emergency room. Even though I'm not allergic, any time you have a large amount of venom, you have a toxic reaction," McCool told The Derrick of Oil City for Thursday's editions.

Church maintenance man Lee Stroup said the congregation plans to worship as normal Sunday.

"We've never had to hold church elsewhere. We'll have church this Sunday," said Stroup. "We just wanted them gone so no one gets stung."

[Neil D]

Thanks, saw this on my "bee board". This guy got out 50 lbs of honey, and there was MORE to get at the time of this writing.

Oh, just as an FYI, bees with thier combs in the walls of a house, tend to leak honey at some point, whether in the summer when things are hot on the outside and the wall is taking most of the heat, ...or during the winter, where human tend to warm up the house....

Melting point of wax tends to depend upon the age of the wax. The newer/whiter/less dark it is, the lower the melting point.

Just an FYI for all you harboring bees in your walls....as opposed to bees in your bonnets!...

[Gregory Matthews]

I had a next-door neighbour once who got rid of hes bees by pouring some gasoline in through thier entrance.

By the way, there was an exit in the house. That is what got his attention as the bees often came in the house.

That exit was located in a room with a gas fired hot water heater.

Yes, it started a fire.

[Neil D]

Quote:

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I had a next-door neighbour once who got rid of hes bees by pouring some gasoline in through thier entrance....Yes, it started a fire.

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Of course HE did, the less-than-smart-individual-who-was-being-cheap.

How much damage did he do to the house? Blow it up??? Tore open the side of the house? Betcha he had some major repairs.....right?

Shoot, a beekeeper will also do damage in removing bees from the house, but it will be efficently repairable. IE taking out the wall between studs to expose the bees/combs ect.

And you might just get some honey out of the combs in the process if you ask a beekeeper to remove the hive. The beekeeper wants the bees, and will foster thier care to produce more honey, which will increase crops for the farmer. It is an easy hive to obtain, well, sort of...

[LynnDel]

We didn't know it one Sabbath, but the driver ants were on the march. They marched right into the beehive that was within the structure of our church. This was when I was a kid in Ethiopia, and we were all in church (men on one side, women on the other), when the bees started going crazy. I was less than five years old, but I still remember the mad dash from the church to our house, running down the red dirt road, and Mom crying over my baby sister, who had gotten stung many times. She survived, and I got no stings at all. Somehow bees just don't go for me.

LD

[Nan]

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Just an FYI for all you harboring bees in your walls....as opposed to bees in your bonnets!...

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Do you know any bee keepers who offer a service for removing bees from bonnets ? Guess they would be "-onnet-eers" wouldn't they? Could be very useful people to have around <img src="/ubbtreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />