Dear Craig,
Long time no see! I hope you are in good health and spirits.
I thought I should drop you a line to let you know what’s going on with your house on North Salcedo street. Unfortunately some bees have built a nest near your side entrance. It’s an active hive. We often find bees in our house that have come over from yours.
Also, I should let you know that the neighborhood kids have taken to playing on your porch and climbing in your trees. We try to keep them from doing too much damage but there’s not a lot we can do. I’m actually more worried they’ll hurt themselves.
Attached you’ll find a picture of some kids playing with a shovel in your front yard.
Just thought you should know.
Your neighbor
You might mention he potentially exposes himself to liability issues if some kids get hurt on his abandoned property.
It’s pretty impressive that there’s a beehive there — I wonder if someone from the university would like to come and get it? After all there has been this “hive collapse” phenomenon, and bees are in short supply both in the US and other countries. I hear Japan is missing their bees too.\
Now that I think of it, whenever we had yellow jacket or hornet trouble, my dad contacted the biology department at University of Buffalo, and they could always find someone who was willing to come get the hive and take it away, for research purposes.
I bet someone at the U. would really like to have those bees.
— And one of the reasons I brought that up was that there’d be the added benefit for you guys of having the bees gone.