Ma Velle Enterprise – The Bee Man

Why no reviews since 2010? Heh, that was a waspy summer.
So, my first encounter — I start noticing as I walk down my front door path in/​out of the house during the summer of 2010 that wasps are criss-​crossing my path like we’re intersecting traffic. I don’t really get where they’re going and think they’re just hanging out cuz my townhouse sits on a huge lawn.
Then one day I notice a little pile of pebbles at the foundation of my house under the bedroom window. In the concrete. I’m like, hmm. Whatevs.
Then a week later I think about the pebbles and look over as I walk the same path and the pile seems to be growing bigger. WTF? Is something burrowing in my concrete pad?
Then I’m lying in bed one night and I feel this «energy.» I keep looking at the window trying to figure what’s going on. I sit in the silence, but the fans are on so I cut them off and I sit there trying to figure out what that «energy.» Is. It feels like … humming. From somewhere. Where?
I look down at the floor. I get a terrible weird feeling. Is that … humming … coming from the same area of the foundation where I saw little pebbles from the outside? There’s a telephone port in the wall. I get down on my hands and knees and put my hand to the wall. It feels hot. I listen. The humming … is stronger here. OMG. I put tape over the whole telephone port to protect myself.
So I call my landlord. He calls the bee man. The bee man shows up and says, THESE ARE YELLOWJACKETS. They live in the ground. They burrow. And yes, they can dig through concrete; they have built a hive in your wall. Good idea you put the tape over the telephone port.
SAY WHAT?!
He does his treatment. Bam, they’re gone. He leaves a cute and random gold and green see-​through business card that is so memorable I keep it.
THREE YEARS LATER … I’ve got people cleaning the back patio and they’re like, um, you’ve got bees in your potted plant. I’m like, WHAT?
I creep over and see something gold and buzzy inside and immediately back away.
Right there, still on top of my desk 3 years later, is the green card. I call Thomas. Thomas is abrupt on the phone but we work out an appointment time. He comes 20 min late, and the number on the card seems not to be a mobile number but an office or home landline, and so I just have to wait out his arrival.
He shows up and quotes an amazingly cheap price to spray them out, then advises me on what caused the problem in the first place — wasps are nesting in my curled up dead potted plants because they are covered with spider webs and wasps are meat eaters. I need to be more diligent about dealing with spider webs around the outside of the house or I’ll attract more.
He pulls out a little mini comb from the clutches of the curled up leaf and I grin in chagrin.
Tipped him for his effort, and off he went.
BZZ BZZ BZZ.

The Bee Man responded quickly and for a reasonable price. No more yellow jacket nest in my car door jamb!

I sort of doubt the review here. Called Ma Velle to schedule, he told me would call me back see how his days went and might stop by later. Then I called couple hours later, he totally forgot then scheduled another time. Eventually Ma Velle didn’t show up at all, no call either. I called back but no one answered. I don’t mind to reschedule but at least give me a call.

Wasps started to invade my office building through the light fixtures. The bee man cane quickly (exactly the time he quoted), was knowledgable and nice, and fixed the problem quickly. He followed up to ensure everything worked to plan. Too bad he is retiring this year.

The Bee Man is wonderful! Professional, informative, kind, kept us relaxed while a swarm of bees were making a nest in our chimney and family room! After trying to smoke out the bees, we should have called Thomas 1^st thing. We had to leave our house last night. Thousands of bees everywhere, but The Bee Man had us laughing and back in our home in two hours!

Wednesday: come home from work; 8 bees in the house.
Thursday: another 6 – 8 bees in the house. hmmm… they seem to be coming from the fireplace. Husband lights a fire to smoke them out.
Friday: more bees in the house, but they’re moving really slowly.
Saturday: there are still bees in the house. Call the chimney sweep; they say no, call a bee keeper. Me: Oh, a bee keeper? Unilocal to the rescue. I Unilocaled «bees» and found the bee man. I describe the situation to him and he says it sounds like I have honeybees. He says he can be at my house in 30 – 45 minutes.
The Bee Man arrives as promised and tells me that I have honeybee «scouts» AND wasps. He informs me that the scouts are looking for a site for their hive and that they’re evaluating my chimney as a possible location to move the entire colony of bees. I’m utterly fascinated and absolutely freaking out about 15 – 20,000 bees making a home in my home. He explains that he’s going to mess with the bees’ chemical memory of my chimney (huh? bees have memories?).
Anyway, he treats the bees and the wasps. Two weeks later, I cautiously walk along the side of the house where the bees and wasp nets WERE… they’re no longer there. I am one satisfied customer. I do, however, feel bad for the poor schmuck who is now playing host to an entire colony of bees… I hope he’s reading this and calls the Bee Man, too.

Thomas is fantastic!
Got a knock on the door Tuesday afternoon from the neighbors: «hey, it looks like bees are trying to build a hive in your walls!»
PANIC
Call up «Ma Velle» (odd name, yes,): «How can I help you? What are the bees doing? How high up is the entrance? What does it sound like? I can come by first thing tomorrow.»
EXACTLY what you want to hear.
PANIC subsides
Next day: Thomas comes out, explains tons about bee behavior, sprays some stuff, says the bees will go away later today, oh and by-​the-​way, I’ll come by in the next few days as a courtesy to make sure the treatment worked correctly.
PANIC is gone.
Whew!
Only bad news is that Thomas says he hopes to retire at the end of 2010 — too bad for us, he’s great!

Fine job exterminating two honeybee hives in my roof. Arrived on time, charged a reasonable rate.

Of course my large swarm of bees moved in over 4^th of July weekend. I called on Saturday, and Thomas came out first thing Sunday and took care of the problem. He was very careful to explain all the chemicals and their possible side effects before doing any treatment, as well as what I needed to do to clean up so my pets would be safe. Great service!

I first called Thomas of Ma Velle in 1993 and at that time, he came by and took care of yellow jackets for us. Called him again in 2003, and he came by and took care of another outbreak. But by now his price tag had gone up by almost 200% (just goes to show how relatively inexpensive 1993 was!). Had to call him again recently (2008). Almost the same price, which btw, is pretty reasonable and while the original call was about yellow jackets in the umbrella pole, he checked out the whole dwelling and took care of about 10 hives all over.
Highly recommend.

We had a large hive of yellow jackets inside the wall near the entrance to our home and Thomas the «Bee Man» took care of it for us quickly and at a much more reasonable price compared to other places we called. He showed up when promised and clearly explained his reasoning and his game plan and even answered tons of my geeky questions about the insects’ life cycle, behavior, etc. Thomas also showed us how to minimize any stragglers from finding their way into our home which had been a problem before we called him. The next day we no longer had a ton of wasps by our door nor inside our home. Give Thomas a call next time you want someone to come out to deal with the stinging insects bugging you.