A meter reader for the Placer County Water Agency recently found a swarm of trouble that left the department buzzing.
Unable to get a remote reading from a home on Shockley Road, the worker went to check the meter in a ground-level concrete box.
He discovered it filled with a colony of 5,000 bees and layers of honeycomb, prompting a call to fellow worker Leslie Gault, a civil engineer whose hobby is raising bees.
Gault donned protective gear and successfully transferred the layers of honeycomb from the meter box into a portable bee box. After the bees were accustomed to the new home, she moved them to her beekeeping yard in Nevada County.
"This was the first time we've successfully gotten a bee colony out of a meter box," Gault said about the Aug. 7 incident.
"The only other time we had one, the owner wouldn't let us onto her property," she said.
Gault said honeybees prefer to colonize trees, especially older, decaying ones.
"Meter boxes are the low-rent district. They'd much prefer a high-rise."
– Art Campos
