I like this story for many reasons.

"I worked in an old house where we had a day school for retarded adults. This is a private school that gets government endowments and private money. The house should have been condemned years ago--but the whole 5 years I was there, the bees were in the attic.  Sometimes they would come into the front room (next to the fireplace) these usually didn't fly---just crawled.  I would scoop them up and put them outside. They would swarm three or four times a year--forming balls in the trees outside. Within a day or two they would be gone. I would stand in the middle of a swarm (it happened at the same time every day for two or three days--half hour durations--then finally the ball would form. I fell in love with them standing in their swarms. They never touched me and I've never been stung.
    They were in that attic for 10 years. This year the house was demolished, but before it happened I begged bee keepers to come and take them out. I don't work there anymore so I had no pull or power. The bee keepers wouldn't go into the building even though it was coming down.
    The cheapest thing for the school was extermination--so that's what they did. When it comes to these endangered creatures its always about the bottom line.
    I felt like I had lost my best friend. As if hive collapse wasn't killing them fast enough---people kill them because they are in the way. I'm on the central coast ---here there just wasn't anyone who was interested enough to try to save them. The exterminator said he'd take them out alive if I'd give him $200. I didn't have it. The school is non-profit so they didn't have it, so opted to pay $60 to exterminate them.
    Thanks for preserving them alive."

No Bee Nest Removal
Charlene Josse

For expert advise and swarm removal help, give The Bees' Knees Bee Removal Services a try.

This hardened criminal lives just a few miles down the road from us.  It's scary to think about people like this lurking around our neighborhoods.  Luckily, the government is taking action against her in a wonderfully efficient use of taxpayer dollars.

"Pat Walker admits she is in violation of a Louisburg ordinance against beekeeping, but she said the rule is unfair and unconstitutional.  A judge will decide on Tuesday whether Walker will go to jail for 20 days and be forced to give up her backyard beehives.
Walker said last March her family started keeping hundreds of honeybees."

Louisburg woman faces jail over beekeeping
Reporter: Renee Chou
Photographer: Terry Cantrell
Web Editor: Kathy Hanrahan

I'd never heard of a beekeeper who wanted his bees to swarm.  We usually manage against it.

"I am an illegal urban beekeeper. In my small Midwest town bees are classified as 'pests.' Pest indeed! In the first 16 years I lived in my house I never saw a honey bee. As a way to honor and remember my late father who kept 10 hives I decided to get a hive to release some swarms back into the wild... I did get stung once this summer for ignoring several of my rules:

1. Don't play with the bees after 2 martinis.
2. Smoke the hive before opening.
3. Don't open the hive at dusk when almost everyone is home.
4. If you aren't going to wear gloves watch where you put your fingers.

Ouch!"
-Craig Stitt,
"I Am An Illegal Urban Beekeeper"