The mystery of the beehive

Early Saturday evening, before dark, I had returned from a full day at the ADK Expo. I was tired and just wanted to hunker down with a glass of wine and a few bites of food I could easily pull out of the refrigerator with little or no preparation.

About this time, my neighbors called to tell me there was a very large beehive in the tree in my front yard. I have never seen such a sight. It was gourd shaped, over a foot long and on one end it must have been eight or nine inches across.

Early Sunday morning I was on my computer googling beehives and how to deal with them. I learned if it is honeybees, you should find a competent person to remove the hive and save the bees. From standing on the ground looking at the hive, we could not tell what kind of hive it was - wasps, yellowjackets or honeybees.

I was busy with other things around the house and taking down a beehive was not high on my list of priorities at the time.

Monday afternoon I was returning from taking Molly for a walk. My neighbors saw me and came running up to ask what I had done with the beehive. I looked at them with a blank stare and then looked up to where the beehive had been.

It was gone! How could this massive beehive, swarming with bees, just disappear? It would have taken considerable time and equipment, I would think, for someone to remove that hive. How could this be accomplished without me knowing about it? The neighbors said they noticed it was gone on Sunday evening and they thought I had taken care of it quickly!

Any ideas?