I've had multiple people ask about the fake achievement in my signature, so I figured it may bee be time to actually write this down somewhere.
In case I remove the image from my signature in the future, I'll also place it here:
I'll have to dig up the photos of the hive and take some photos of the honeycombs we still have, but I can do that after I post this main bit here.
During the summer of 2017, one fine morning came about when bees began flying in through the ventilation system in my house. They didn't sting or anything, they were just flying into the house. (We later learned that bees are attracted to light and will move toward the source, hence why they only flew in when lights were near the vents.)
Cue absolute terror because my family didn't know why these bees were flying in, nor where it was they could be coming from. There were no openings we could see, no possible way they could be entering through the windows, no place from the outside (but they had to be coming in from the outside, clearly) they could seem to enter--we tried ruling out everything we could to avoid punching a hole in the wall to actually check the vents and walls themselves.
After several days of bees pouring in through the vents and being sucked up in a vacuum, we knew we were in over our heads. We called an exterminator, who then directed us to a very kind beekeeper (this dude straight up made an invention that safely sucks up bees into a container, he was a mathematician that spent a very long time figuring out the exact amount of suction or whatever he'd need to avoid harming the bees, but I digress.) who came out to help us.
Our house is very old, and has many issues you wouldn't usually see in newer houses. One of these issues led to there being a gap on the side of our house, just small enough for insects to get through, and just small enough that we couldn't notice. The beekeeper had followed the bees outside to see where they went in, and that's how we discovered that gap.
There was one thing left to do. My dad and the beekeeper opened up a section of the siding on our house.
Never in my life had a felt such a visceral chill of fear as when I saw at least a thousand bees crammed into my living room wall, loudly buzzing and crawling all over the place. The beekeeper found and extracted the queen, and the other bees soon followed without issue or anyone getting stung. (The beekeeper told us that bees rarely actually sting, as it is a last resort for hive defense and always kills the bee itself. The experience was terrifying and educational!)
So it was over, right? The bees were gone, and that was it?
Wrong.
The very next day, bees were flooding in through the vents again like clockwork, more frantic now that they couldn't find their queen. Still didn't sting, sure, but they were there and they were not happy. So my family called the beekeeper again, telling him that there were still bees coming in. He came back out again, and examined the opening they'd previously gotten in through, looking to see if there's any detail he missed.
There was another opening. This house is such hot garbage that there were two secret passageways suited perfectly for bees. Only when the beekeeper opened up this part of the wall, we were graced with a much more horrifying sight.
At least 4,500 bees were in the wall.
You could see the honeycombs themselves, so new that they were still white, and had no honey or dirt on them. If we thought it had been out of control before, it became clear that if we hadn't caught it when we did, we'd have had a much bigger problem on our hands. The beekeeper extracted the bees and the combs, and we still have those combs today. He told us that bees completely lose interest in the combs if they're taken from the hive, and they really did ignore them.Which is a good thing, because the last thing I want is a swarm of angry bees looking for revenge because we took their stuff. In fact, they completely ignored us in general. The beekeeper got stung once, but that was it.
That was truly the end of it. We sealed up the openings they'd gotten in through in the first place, replaced the siding, and haven't had any problems since. We did, however, figure out why it was our house they chose to infest. We live next to a very large cranberry and blueberry farm, pollinated by the bees that were taking up residence in our house. We were in the exact perfect position for them to be able to thrive, not to mention our house had enough structural issues that they would be able to get inside and be safe. (Mostly. I'm pretty sure we still have bees in our vacuum.)
Anyway, that's it! I'll try to dig up the picture I had of one section of the wall, and I'll take pictures of the combs in a little while.
TL;DR There were roughly 5,000 bees living in my wall and ever since that harrowingyet educational event, my friends have never let up with associating me with bees.
@starshiny @Jinoga @Alphazi @Hisscale
In case I remove the image from my signature in the future, I'll also place it here:
I'll have to dig up the photos of the hive and take some photos of the honeycombs we still have, but I can do that after I post this main bit here.
During the summer of 2017, one fine morning came about when bees began flying in through the ventilation system in my house. They didn't sting or anything, they were just flying into the house. (We later learned that bees are attracted to light and will move toward the source, hence why they only flew in when lights were near the vents.)
Cue absolute terror because my family didn't know why these bees were flying in, nor where it was they could be coming from. There were no openings we could see, no possible way they could be entering through the windows, no place from the outside (but they had to be coming in from the outside, clearly) they could seem to enter--we tried ruling out everything we could to avoid punching a hole in the wall to actually check the vents and walls themselves.
After several days of bees pouring in through the vents and being sucked up in a vacuum, we knew we were in over our heads. We called an exterminator, who then directed us to a very kind beekeeper (this dude straight up made an invention that safely sucks up bees into a container, he was a mathematician that spent a very long time figuring out the exact amount of suction or whatever he'd need to avoid harming the bees, but I digress.) who came out to help us.
Our house is very old, and has many issues you wouldn't usually see in newer houses. One of these issues led to there being a gap on the side of our house, just small enough for insects to get through, and just small enough that we couldn't notice. The beekeeper had followed the bees outside to see where they went in, and that's how we discovered that gap.
There was one thing left to do. My dad and the beekeeper opened up a section of the siding on our house.
Never in my life had a felt such a visceral chill of fear as when I saw at least a thousand bees crammed into my living room wall, loudly buzzing and crawling all over the place. The beekeeper found and extracted the queen, and the other bees soon followed without issue or anyone getting stung. (The beekeeper told us that bees rarely actually sting, as it is a last resort for hive defense and always kills the bee itself. The experience was terrifying and educational!)
So it was over, right? The bees were gone, and that was it?
Wrong.
The very next day, bees were flooding in through the vents again like clockwork, more frantic now that they couldn't find their queen. Still didn't sting, sure, but they were there and they were not happy. So my family called the beekeeper again, telling him that there were still bees coming in. He came back out again, and examined the opening they'd previously gotten in through, looking to see if there's any detail he missed.
There was another opening. This house is such hot garbage that there were two secret passageways suited perfectly for bees. Only when the beekeeper opened up this part of the wall, we were graced with a much more horrifying sight.
At least 4,500 bees were in the wall.
You could see the honeycombs themselves, so new that they were still white, and had no honey or dirt on them. If we thought it had been out of control before, it became clear that if we hadn't caught it when we did, we'd have had a much bigger problem on our hands. The beekeeper extracted the bees and the combs, and we still have those combs today. He told us that bees completely lose interest in the combs if they're taken from the hive, and they really did ignore them.
That was truly the end of it. We sealed up the openings they'd gotten in through in the first place, replaced the siding, and haven't had any problems since. We did, however, figure out why it was our house they chose to infest. We live next to a very large cranberry and blueberry farm, pollinated by the bees that were taking up residence in our house. We were in the exact perfect position for them to be able to thrive, not to mention our house had enough structural issues that they would be able to get inside and be safe. (Mostly. I'm pretty sure we still have bees in our vacuum.)
Anyway, that's it! I'll try to dig up the picture I had of one section of the wall, and I'll take pictures of the combs in a little while.
TL;DR There were roughly 5,000 bees living in my wall and ever since that harrowing
@starshiny @Jinoga @Alphazi @Hisscale
FR+3
