On occasion the Extension Center gets calls on a honeybee colony that has taken up residence in a home. Typically, the homeowner is glad to tolerate them as long as they are not getting out inside the house, and the entrance they are using outside is in an area that the homeowner doesn't frequently walk past. After a while, we get the call as to how to get rid of them.
At this point, unfortunately, it gets to be rather difficult. Not only do you have to get the bees out, you also need to remove all of the wax and honey from inside the wall or another swarm will simply move in, or if one doesn't, the remaining honey may ferment and escape the deteriorating honey comb and you end up with a sticky, smelly mess as it seeps through an interior wall or ceiling.
For more information call your local Extension Center or a local beekeeper.
Here are a few pictures of one experience of excluding bees from a chimney. In this case, the bees had been calling this site home for over a year before they began to come into the home itself. By using a screen funnel, the bees will work up and exit the hive. The screen allows the scent of the hive to continue to be from the entrance to the hive so the returning bees try to go in like they always have and they can't find their way back in through the small opening of the funnel. At the end of the day those bees that have been trapped out of the hive will form an artificial "swarm," with no queen, that can then be caught like a normal swarm. In this picture we have left a hive in place in hopes they will move in as it turns into night time.
Will it work? I'll have to let you know!
