Large beehive removal at church in midtown Mobile

MOBILE, Ala. ( WKRG ) — One of Mobile’s oldest churches is trying to fix a new problem. A large beehive had been growing in the bell tower of Trinity Episcopal Church in midtown for almost a decade.

From a distance, you can hardly tell a hole in the roof hosted a big beehive. Brandon Hargraves puts on his protective gear. For him, it’s another day of problem-solving for B’s Bees .

“It’s like a big puzzle. It’s a puzzle that keeps ebbing and flowing,” said Hargraves. While most states have some laws protecting honeybees, Hargraves says Alabama only requires property owners to “look into” hive removal, some choose the cheaper option of killing the bees, but he says that can lead to even more problems.

“Honey and all the wax comb that’s in there will melt down once the bees leave. And so then you’ll have a boost in other pests such as ants, cockroaches, mice. And then if there’s a lot of honey that’ll run down and create black mold,” said Hargraves. Having a large beehive in a very big and old church isn’t a great scenario. But folks here say the bees weren’t all bad.

Bryan Pearce, Sr. Warden: “And we have a church garden next door, and those bees were probably pollinating a lot of our altar flowers that we use. And they also pollinate a lot of fruits and vegetables that we give out through our food ministry,” said Sr. Warden Bryan Pearce.

Hargraves estimates this hive of 40,000 bees, and 40 pounds of honey is around eight years old but only noticed by the church in the last three months.

“A lot of the dead ones were found beyond our organ console. And then every now and then bees would be visible flying through the air up in our choir loft. Ultimately, a couple of people in the choir were stung. They didn’t skip a beat on their singing, but they were stung. And then we had a couple of parishioners also stung,” said Pearce.

For the last few days Hargraves has been working from a cherry picker high in the air, removing the honeycomb and coaxing the bees from their hive into a box, transporting the hive to a new location before cleaning up the remnants. The bees making themselves known in the church either defending the hive or leaving a mess of honey as the eviction was underway.

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