West End - Hive

This is the first time I've been called via a swarm call and instead of a swarm, I found a hive! It was built into this building near some local business, a school, and a church! Really small tight knit community in the west end of Pittsburgh. Really fun to find this one but I haven't been able to do anything with it yet. From the pictures you can clearly see the bees "bearding" they do this to keep cool on hot days. This is obviously what caused the phone call for help. My guess is the bees overwintered in this building and are coming out strong. They could have been there even longer!

I won't know more until I get some more equipment and the owner of the building gives me the goahead to tear down the boarded up entry way to see what I'm dealing with. I'm planing on there being a good bit of build up inside the walls. So far as I can tell there is only one entrance way, the little hole visible above the grouping. I've never done this before but I'm confident I can do it if I get the tools to work it properly. I'm thinking at least a sawzall and if possible a "beevac" which I'd have to construct myself. I'm looking forward to all of that! I'll update more on this when I can - so far there is not much known.