Don Vandervort, Head Homeboy, has written more than 30 DIY home improvement books, been a segment host on HGTV, served as MSN.com's home improvement expert and written countless magazine articles.
In April, I saw a ball of bees hanging from my tree. Wow, an actual BALL of live nature. Scary, clumpy nature, with stingers. I called the bee guy. “Hey, do I have to kill these guys?” Tony the Bee Guy casually says, “If you see a ball of bees with no nest, they’re just hanging out and waiting to find their new home. Wait 24 hours and they’ll move on. It’ll save you $150.” The cost of bee ball removal.
I thought, don’t kill the bees, jeez, if they can go live somewhere else, like in my neighbor’s yard. Besides, $150, that buys a lot of MnMs. Dead bees or MnMs. Hmm.
A day later, the bees are gone. Wow, Tony is a genius. What if they moved into the garage or a tree nearby, though, the dark thought in the back of my mind. But I didn’t see any swarming. I thought, Wow, they took off for Palm Springs. I saved bees.
Four months later. We’re putting Nathan to sleep and he stands on his bed to shut his window and says, “HEY! Look, HONEY!”
His wall is dripping honey. There is a giant pool of honey on his windowsill. The bees moved on al right. Right into the house.
$550 later, Bob and Gus remove the 40-pound honeycomb from our attic. Could’ve been worse, they say. How? They could have stolen our car??
Tony is no longer working at the company. Next time I see a bee ball, watch out. Those bees are going down.
