I got a call from my friend who said she had bees flying in her house. She lives in a two story home with brick on the first floor and red wood cedar on the second. A woodpecker made an inch and a half sized opening in the wood siding. By the time I made it out there it was getting dark, but there were SEVERAL dozen bees flying in and out of the entrance. My friend also told me they were making it inside the home, and she sprayed and killed about 50 of them.
From the looks of it, they were nesting in between the floor joists. I told her I would come back another day (when there is light available) and remove them for her. The next day, when I got off work at 5, she called me and said her father was cutting apart the house and spraying them. I ran over as quick as I could to try and stop him.
To my surprise, he had already opened up the entrance. The entrance didn't go in between the floor joists, but was located underneath a bath tub. There were still several dozen bees going to and from the entrance, but there was no comb. We thought they might be in between the walls below the tub, or on the other side of the tub. We ended up tearing up several walls, and found several bees flying around, but no colony. It was very perplexing.
I've seen scout bees checking the entrance of cavities before but I've never seen a few hundred checking out the entrance before, and never for two or three consecutive days.
I told my friend we couldn't find the colony, but I would put a swarm trap outside in case they were in the area. I checked on the swarm trap yesterday and BINGO it's full of bees. I havn't had the chance to open it up yet and inspect, but from the feel of it the swarm was about 4 or 5 lbs. A good catch.
I'm happy it worked out in the end, even though I spent 3 hours tearing open walls for no reason
