This blog goes out to all our customers who call us as a last resort after trying to take care of a bee problem themselves. Some people call you DIY’ers (Do it yourself). Others may call you crazy or brave, depending on who you talk to. We here at Bee Best like to call you “Creative”. Below are three crazy and insane tales from brave DIY’ers who had to give up and call us in order to take care of their bee problems.

Please note that we do not recommend you try any of these solutions. You could get hurt. The people mentioned in these stories were extremely lucky to have escaped without incident (although they all got stung trying to do it themselves).

Story #1 – A while back one of our technicians was removing a hive from a bush at a La Mesa residence. As he was removing the comb he noticed the honeycomb was bright green. Very strange! New honeycomb is usually white or yellow. So how could this be? It turns out the homeowner threw a military grade green colored smoke bomb into the bush. It was the type of smoke bomb that is normally used to locate someone in battle. Apparently it did nothing to get rid of the bees. When we asked the homeowner if it had any affect at all, he said, “The only thing it did was attract the police who came knocking at my door”.

Story #2 – This 2nd story, is a cautionary story of a man who didn’t want to pay for wasp removal. He was outside cleaning his wood deck when he noticed a small grey nest under a table. Apparently the nest looked dormant so the man knocked it down with a broom stick. It was a bad idea. Turns out the nest was actually active. Also turns out that the wasps were actually hornets.  You can imagine what happened next. They came after him as soon as the nest hit the ground. In a panic the man stomped on the nest. He was wearing sandals and shorts. Long story short we received a call from his wife at the hospital asking us to go out and take care of the problem. He was lucky he was not allergic because he was stung 23 times! The wife was furious at him for not calling a professional.

DIY Bee Veil and Helmet

a close up look at the helmet

Story #3 – For our final story we had to show this clip of a home made bee suit. Talk about creativity! It was made by a guy named Juan who works at a fancy hotel in Downtown San Diego. In an attempt to save his employer money, Juan designed the suit so he could try to solve the bee problem on his own. The suit was made using a cardboard box, masking tape, wire mesh, and a garbage bag.  According to Juan the suit worked for a little bit, but as he progressed into the hive, the bees started to enter the suit from the bottom of the plastic bag. Once the bees began stinging his stomach, Juan decided to call it quits and gave us a call. Check out the clip below of Jeff trying on Juan’s home made bee suit.


Although these tales are entertaining and amusing, we highly recommend you don’t try to remove bees yourself. Without the proper equipment and experience you put yourself (and others around you) at risk. Have you ever tried to remove bees, wasps, or hornets yourself? Were you successful? If so share your success (or your tale of woe) below.