I know some people that go off the beaten track to develop the good story. One gentleman, Brian Chen, decided to complete his PhD in Epidemiology while living out of his car. A writer, Novella Carpenter, embarked on a journey to convert an asphalt lot into an urban farm, complete with sows and goats in the depths of West Oakland. My friend Stefani spun wool in a parking lot as a getaway.

When it does happen it can be hard to pinpoint exactly when it gets good. Sometimes it seems to get better and better until it is almost no longer believable, and yet remains true. It also appears there is an inverse relationship between the worsening of a situation and story getting better.

When my bees swarmed on Saturday, was the good story when thousands of them took refuge in my neighbors roof? No.

Was is when I quickly explained to my neighbor, who was peacefully in his backyard, that the bees are mine and he looked up to find that if he raised his arms up we would have rubbed the honey engorged bellies of these bees? He is not accustomed to bees and he ever so calmly said “I am alarmed.” I did my best to talk him through it- “the bees are at their least defensive state”; “they are full of honey and docile when they swarm.” “They just want to find their queen.” He said “there are hundreds and hundreds of them.” I did not bother to correct him to say “no, Byrne, there are actually thousands.”

Was it the moment my uncle began pulling apart my neighbors roof? Not really. Though it did seem to be pretty good when he pulled off a layer of roofing tiles to find another layer, which he pulled off and found then another layer…

Perhaps it was when, after even the extreme measure of destroying the roof and carrying shovels full of bees down to a waiting hive, only to have the queen retreat into an inaccessible area and my uncle, pressed for time, left. Before he dispatched he gave me with a hook razor, some roofing tiles and rapid instructions on how to re-roof the area for the rain. About 40 minutes after he left, all the bees we had shoveled out were right back in the roof. The story seemed good enough by then. Oh but wait- there is more.

After calling beekeeper friends to find a contact for a person with a bee vacuum. The only person I could locate wanted to charge $300. I had to give up and figure out my next step. It would be less money (always think of the farm equation) to buy my own shop vac and convert it. But I didn’t have time to convert it and a storm was approaching. It would be less money to buy the shop vac, vacuum the bees, deal with the aftermath and then convert the vacuum to a bee vac for later use. Yes, there it was- a solution.

6AM the day started. Shop vac in hand, ladder up and gear on by 8AM, vacuuming commenced. Now the thing of it is that my neighbors allowed their roofing to be torn off in order to preserve the colony. So vacuuming now with a 5 horse power shop vac was a bit contradictory to the initial process. In addition to this fact, I had not considered that the air vent was facing their front door and as a result was now splattered with an obvious massacre of bees. Even there, I had not reached my peak of goodness in the story. Nor when my gentle neighbor Byrne stepped out to check on the progress and said, again so calmly, “are those bee guts on my door?”

I decided then to seek out counsel on whether I had gotten the queen or not. If not, I would stop, and try measures to lure her out while calling again for a bee vac. Stefani joined me for the queen confirming and luring. She left me fortified with contacts, tea and good conversation.

More calling connected me with Tim King of “King Bee Removal.” Here is where the story began to reach its peak for me. Tim showed up with his “bee vacuum” which is a clever homemade contraption involving a few 5 gallon buckets, a shop vac hose, a vac motor and a hose accessory. Ok, sounded good. As long as it works I didn’t care if was made out of human remains.

We headed to the roof. We set up, He climbed the ladder. I held the vacuum and hit power, it ran for a moment and then the motor fell off the bucket. Watching it roll around on the ground was like watching your knight in shining armor fall off his horse by the weight of his own armor, very anticlimactic.

That was that. No more vacuuming. We would have to wait to determine if we had gotten the queen. Tim, who has far more experience with bees than me, felt 99% certain we had gotten her. After waiting 3 long hours to dusk for foraging bees to come back and settle in the bucket or the roof I capped the bucket, got my shop vac, suctioned the last remaining bees from the roof. Byrne cleared the abandoned wasp nest and Dipak nailed the roofing into place for the coming rain. After this 48 hour ordeal the colony was removed.

My confidence in beekeeping was faltering but then by chance I caught this episode on The World (thanks Suzie & Cat!) on Young Urban Beekeepers in Germany. While they capture the spirit of beekeeping, the education, excitement and reward, they don’t mention how the new wave of apiculturists handle the unpredictable settling of a swarm in eaves, walls, a roof…