I am beset by bees. On average, I find 2-3 colonies a year in my yard. The price I have to pay for living in a lush oasis in the desert. I have nothing personal against the bees, and I wish them no harm (in the general sense), but I won’t tolerate them nesting close to the house. Since almost all wild hives out here are Africanized (“Killer”) bees, they are too touchy to just ignore. This time, they are in a block wall in my pasture. I should have fixed the broken cap block when I noticed it. It’s pretty amazing how fast they found the opening. Here is a photo of the wall, and thermal shot taken with my nifty Seek Thermal camera accessory for my iPhone.
I normally call the “Bee guy,” but at $200 a pop, it’s getting expensive. I’ve decided to buy a protective suit and nuke them myself.
And, before anyone lectures me about re-homing them - beekeepers don’t want them. Since they are assumed to be Africanized, all the keepers I’ve spoken to say to just destroy them.
I get the image, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m an Applehead.
When I was a kid, it was the time of all the killer bee movies. I worried. I used to actually add in my prayers for no killer bees.
Then I moved to the one place in the US that has them. I’ve never seen any, and definitely never had any take residence in my property. Let’s hope it stays so.
We’ve had rattlesnakes at work. I saw a bobcat outside a store one day. It’s funky state.
I’ve watched a few bee- and hornet-nest-destroying videos on youtube, and they’re quite dramatic. Consider filming yourself in the act and posting it to give us a thrill?
Maybe I got this wrong, but from listening to The History of English podcast, I believe the author was suggesting that the name “Beowulf” meant “Bee Wolf”, a poetic way of saying “Bear”. The poetic name was probably used by the original poet to better keep to the poetic scheme of the story. But the OP already knows this, I’m sure.
The thing is, any nuking of bees and products sold as bee bombs, all that stuff is for NORMAL honey bees. Africanized bees are a whole 'nother story!
Africanized bees get majorly pissed off. And all their neighbors, friends and relatives join the vendetta. That’s what makes them so dangerous. Seriously dangerous!
I’d pay the two hundred bucks, but that’s just me. If you survive the do-it-yourself nuking, consider paying the exterminator to come out to your property for preventative maintenance.
Wear TWO suits. Duct tape all overlaps and wrists and ankles. Have somebody inside the house with 911 on speed dial.
~VOW
Seal hole with foam, drill into block and spray insecticide dust into hole.
Blast with a hose-end “foam gun.”
Use several cans of foaming wasp spray.
Use a CO2 fire extinguisher.
As much fun as it would be to use a torch, it’s much too dangerous out here. There are a lot of flammable leaves and branches in the area. The Foam gun would be the least toxic, but also slowest method. Sealing the hole and then spraying Tri-die into holes drilled in the block is probably the way the Bee guy would do it. The Foaming wasp spray might work, but the nest is quite deep in the block, and i’m concerned that mcuh of the foam wouldn’t reach areas of the hive. The CO2 sounds like fun, but very expensive.
Whatever I decide, I’ll try to set a camera up and record it.
saw the pic, thanks for the new link.
Why would you have to do more than just sealing the hole? Wouldn’t just filling the top of the block with expanding foam to seal it be good enough? Perhaps following up with repairing the broken section of wall with brick and mortar or concrete? I’m not understanding the need to drill another hole to spray in bug killer after you seal them up.
