Battle with the Bees

We had a little trouble with bees in our chimney. We started hearing them buzz and then began seeing bee carcasses in our study. Pretty soon we had bees all over. Our solution was to start a fire and smoke them out. First we tried a fire log but it turns out fire logs put out a lot of flame but little smoke. In the end the light from the log just attracted them all the more. There were soot covered bees everywhere. So we then tried burning bunches of branches and leaves that we took from our yard. That made massive plumes of smoke and they began to see us as ungrateful hosts. In the end they evacuated the chimney and regrouped on the side of the chimney. There they created a huge mass with the queen on the inside. (in the photos below)

This cluster stayed there for three days until they finally left. We assume they were sending out their real estate agents durrng that time and trying to find a new home.

In the end we won the war without a single bee sting.