Normally, we would call a live bee removal expert when we had problems with honey bees on our property. Last month, as much as I hated to do it, I had to call an exterminator. The honey bees had gotten into the chimney and nested over spring. During the summer, we didn’t need to use the chimney, and we weren’t aware of the problem we would soon have. When fall began and the temperatures began dropping, we often used the fireplace to put a burst of heat in the house in the morning. When the fireplace was lit in mid-October, we realized there was something wrong. We only had the chimney cleaned every other year. We wished this was the year it had been cleaned. We lit the fire and smoke started pouring into the house. My husband checked the flue, but it was okay. We had a clog in the chimney and it smelled terrible. We called the chimney sweep and asked to have our chimney cleaned. What he found was not what we expected. A large hive of honey bees had taken residence in the chimney. We had to call an exterminator to make sure the bees were dead before we could have the chimney cleaned. The exterminator said we had over a thousand honey bees in the chimney and it was the burnt honey we were smelling. He said there had to be several gallons of honey that was going to end up in the hearth, unless we could have something inside the hearth to catch the honey and dead honey bees he couldn’t get, as they oozed out.