Several years ago Saturday Night Live ran a series of comedy skits on T.V. concerning the Killer Bees. This came at a time when the Killer Bees presence first came to the attention of the American public, and the portrayal was funny. Well this past Saturday afternoon, my wife Sandra and I had the opportunity to watch an expert bee remover at work; his work involved the removal of a hybrid honey bee and Africanized bee hive from our property.
We first became aware of the bee hive about four months ago, as the bees had taken up residence in the trunk of a Cottonwood tree on our property. Over the four months of their residence they had not taken the opportunity to attack my wife or myself and they even left our curious basset alone. However, in the interest of preventing a tragedy that perhaps may occur we decided to have the hive removed.
I must admit I was concerned, because as a claims adjuster, I know the damage which is done to a home from insects and would not be covered, should the bees decide to move from the tree trunk to my attic. The bee is a member of the hymenoptera class and most insurance companies I have worked for in the past have denied coverage for the removal cost, as well as for the necessary clean up and repair to a house or a garage from a hive.
My wife and I were both concerned about simply killing these magnificent bees simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. With the depletion in population of bees in this country we decided to try to do the right thing and I believe we did. A gentleman named John Tran from Simply Termite in Anaheim was at our home and in a process quite surprising to me vacuumed up a majority of the hive for removal to another hive location. Mr. Tran did have to kill the queen of the hive, in order to make it possible for the bees being transported to another location to be integrated into another hive. Approximately 85%-90% of the hive survived to pollinate another day which was much better than a complete annihilation of the existing hive in our tree trunk.
The one surprising fact I did learn was that our hive was a hybrid containing combs that were honey bee in nature and also Africanized in nature. Mr. Tran gave us a part of the honey bee comb as a souvenir and comparing the two combs, the Africanized comb is much smaller in size and yet both are so very intricate and delicate which only made my wife and I appreciate the beauty and wonder of God’s creation. It’s funny though, I do miss them.
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