One of the most terrifying scenes in the movie Aliens is the one where the few remaining survivors of the Sulaco are huddled in a small room. Their monitoring equipment is beeping over and over in an ominous rhythmic tone as the aliens approach.
The gap between life and death rapidly closes as Private Hudson announces the aliens’ distance away from the group. At 12 meters Ripley believes the aliens to be right outside the door, but when their instruments indicate the aliens have approached within 6 meters, the group sees no evidence of the lethal creatures that have all but decimated the entire colony on LV-426.
Then, one by one, they all look up. Corporal Hicks pops open a ceiling grate and shines a flashlight into the darkness. There he sees dozens of sleek-domed predators heading their way.
Yes, completely terrifying cinematic moment, and if you’ve seen it, you know how creepy it is and you may begin to understand how freaked out Nathan and I were when he pulled a shirt out of his closet and finally found out how the bees were getting in through a hole in the drywall.
So yeah, the good news is we finally found out how the bees were getting in.
The bad news is the bees are still getting in.
The good news is that they are still dying.
The bad news is that they are still dying IN OUR BEDROOM.
I’ve Googled several variations of “bees burrowing through drywall” only to become disheartened by responses that mention bee keepers, photos of huge paper nests and hippie-type bee lovers who lament the declining bee population and urge everyone to consider “non-lethal” means of extraction
Sometimes I do hate the internet.
We killed about seven bees today. Sure, they were bees that were on their way out already, but they truly made afternoon nap time a horror. Autumn woke up screaming after a large fly landed on her arm as she slept in her own bed. So what did I do? I picked her up and deposited her in the “bug room.” We thought the bees were all gone, but Autumn again woke up screaming when a bee entered her airspace. You should have heard her. It was terrible.
After that we were done. We started moving things around in the closet to see if we could figure out where they were coming in. And we did. And it was creepy. An entire shirt covered in crumbled drywall and dead bee larvae.
Ew.
Oh, and did I mention I lost my shit when I discovered a bee crawling up my ankle?
Oh yeah, I lost my shit big time and I lost it in front of my kid, who will forever be traumatized by the Great Infestation of ‘09.
Nathan will be calling the exterminators tomorrow to see what we can do about getting rid of the bees for good. Right now he has a plastic container shoved up against the hole to keep any buzzing interlopers at bay.
If I hadn’t taken some NyQuil for the flu that has plagued me all weekend, I probably would not be getting any sleep tonight.
{ 7 comments }
What is up with these bees? Why do they hate you so much?
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Agh, seriously??? Bees can eat through drywall? That’s crazy!
I’m glad you finally found out where they were coming in though! But if the guy sprayed them all last week shouldn’t they all have been dead by now???
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Krista-yes, bees can burrow through drywall. We never knew they could do that either, but I guess it’s a lot more common than we thought. I shudder to think how many there were originally. Fortunately the exterminators guarantee their service so that we don’t have to pay for a second visit.
Shannon-I don’t think they hate me so much as they hate my husband. Bees have always had it in for him. Needless to say, I slept alone last night.
I’m an entomologist and owner of a stinging insect removal company in Florida.
Assuming these are (were) honey bees:
Did the pest control technicians, or someone else, remove the comb and dead bees? If not , you can expect to continue to see bees for about a week. When we eradicate a colony and leave it in a structure, the pupae are not affected by the insecticide, and will continue to emerge as adults. With a large colony, you can have !10-15000 of these newly emergent adults, wandering around.
Hopefully, your technician applied a residual insecticide, which will control these new emergent bees, eventually.
Almost more importantly, is the honey, pollen and other material that bees put away, if not properly treated, fly and beetle maggots can get in and start feeding on the material, causing it to ferment and liquify.
If the nest was not large, you might be ok.
hth. Richard Martyniak
Richard-Thanks so much for the advice. It was very helpful when we called up the exterminators again to ask questions. We were told our bees were yellow jackets, which I guess aren’t honey-producing bees. Pest control came out again today, sprayed though the hole and knocked down the nest, which was apparently right inside the hole. My husband is going to work on patching up the hole in a few days. For now we still have the plastic container blocking their access.
We just found wasps in our attic that made a hole in our bathroom ceiling. I definitely know what you’re talking about. I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach every time I think about them. Especially the day after my husband sprayed and then cutting a hole in the ceiling to pull out the hive piece by piece. I had the pleasure of sweeping up the hundreds of dead wasps.
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