Buzzing


Continued from page C1 

Tenn. He found the bees had 
constructed a hive between the 
first- and second-floor condo 
units and entered through a 
crack between the bricks and 
siding. 

On Tuesday evening, Miles 
explained how he would wait 
for sundown. That’s when all 
the bees return to the hive. He’d 
turn down the lights, chill the 
air and saw away. Then he 
hoped to vacuum thousands of 
live honeybees from the ceiling 
without too much of a fight. 

Not all were as docile as that 
first bee. 

Ouch! 

Probably 30 to 40 stings. 
One right on the lip. That was 
his damage assessment 
Wednesday morning. “It still 
hurts. It’s just something I’ve 
gotten used to.” 

The insect irritability he 
attributed to the warm air. The 
air-conditioning wouldn’t go as 
low as he needed. Heat and 
bright lights can irk the bees, he 
said. So can cloudy weather. A 
dark cool room calms them. 

Still, Miles sucked up 6 
pounds of live bees. (Various 
online sites that sell honeybees 
estimate from 3,000 to 5,000 
bees per pound.) 

All the while, Miles wore little more than a long-sleeve 
shirt to guard his forearms and 
surgical gloves to keep his 
hands from getting sticky. 
Other than that, he said, he 
simply scratched out the 
stingers. 

He’s a bee devotee. “I love 
them,” Miles said. “They’re an 
incredible insect. They’re the 
only insect that there is that 
makes food for humans. 

“I feel they can really be 
calming to me even with being 
stung.” 

Complex roles 

Renowned for intelligence, 
honeybees boast complex communications and a nuanced 
division of labor. A hive can 
have more than 200,000 
female worker bees, a couple of 
hundred stingerless male 
drones and a single queen. And, 
of course, those workers relay 
the direction and distance of 

Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times 
Greg Miles uses a stethoscope to locate the hive in the ceiling. 
Bob Gathany/Huntsville Times 
Thousands of bees were living in this south Huntsville condo. 
attractive flowers with the 
famous waggle dance. 

But perhaps, honeybees are 
so well-regarded not because of 
their complex roles in their 
society, but because of their 
complex role in our own. 
National Geographic News 
estimates bee pollination is 
responsible for 15 to 30 percent 
of the U.S. diet, as they pollinate everything from apples to 
almonds. In fact, Miles said it’s 
illegal to exterminate a honeybee colony in Tennessee. 

“Most states do somewhat 
protect honeybees because they 
are declining in population,” 
said Michael Pope of Trutech 
Inc., the only company listed in 
the Huntsville phone book 
under bee removal. 

But Trutech doesn’t do live 
removal, he said, and in many 
situations honeybee hives may 
not be a threat. 

Because of parasites and disease, the number of farmed 
hives in the United States was 

cut in half over the last 50 years, 
experts say. And for almost 20 
years, two parasitic mites have 
literally been sucking the life 
out of honeybees. Some biologists predict the decline could 
lead to shortages of certain 
fruits and vegetables. 

In 1997, Scientific American 
suggested that there were virtually no wild honeybees left. For 
his part, Miles simply refers to 
wild honeybees as “almost 
extinct.” 

Locally, the story is the 
same. “They’ve been going 
down since 1988,” said Bill 
Mullins, vice president of the 
Madison County Beekeepers 
Association. “We have to struggle to keep our bees alive. We 
medicate them in the spring 
and in the fall.” 

Unlike some states, Alabama has no laws regarding the 
extermination of wild honeybees, said Dennis Barclift, the 
state apiarist with the Alabama 
Department of Agriculture. 

Several state laws do protect 
managed honeybee hives, said 
Barclift, which must be registered and are routinely inspected for disease. 

Yet when it comes to discovery of an unwelcome hive, of 
more than 1,000 beekeepers in 
Alabama, Barclift said most 
avoid the liability that comes 
with home removal. “I don’t 
know of anyone that does that.” 

He’s as busy as a … 

Miles, who began working 
among honeybees 17 years ago 
in Colorado, keeps 38 hives 
buzzing in Hendersonville. 
And, although he said populations are shrinking, during the 
summer Miles said he can stay 
busy nearly every weekday 
removing hives from the walls 
of suburban homes. 

And Miles recycles everything he removes. 

He saws away the ceiling 
and uses a special tool to cut 
down each honeycombed slab 
of wax, vacuuming the bees 
into a mesh cage. If an exterminator left the wax and honey in 
the ceiling, he said, and if ants 
or other insects found it, then it 
could turn rancid. 

On Tuesday, he left 
Huntsville with two coolers 
filled with 40 pounds of wax 
and honey, which he’ll heat to 
separate. Beeswax sells for 
about $3 per pound to make 
candles and cosmetics, Miles 
said. He sells the honey for 
more than $2 per pound, as do 
several local beekeepers in 
Madison County. 

Afterward, he fogged the 
condo to exterminate a thousand or so stragglers. The transplanted hive will begin producing for him in Tennessee. “The 
biggest thing is getting the 
queen,” he said. “Should something happen to her, should I 
smash her or drop her on the 
floor ...” 

His voice trailed off at the 
thought. He won’t know for 
days. But if the worst should 
have happened, Miles has been 
breeding spare queens back in 
Tennessee. Even royalty, it 
seems, can be replaced.