Today's adventure...

...was had by the pest control guy, rather than by me.
About twelve days ago we noticed a swarm of bees hovering over the house and then flying into and out of the chimney. Not good news so we tried discouraging the bees by lighting fires and such like. Unfortunately this didn't work and the bees seemed to have decided our chimney was a very desirable residence.
We checked the house insurance and called the pest control people, one of whom came today.
It was extremely windy but he seemed happy to balance on our narrow roof platform. He squirted powder around the top of the chimney and into the relevant channels. If the bees touch the powder they die after a while and sick bees leave the nest so they go and die somewhere else. While he was squirting, the bees were less than happy and surrounded him in a little cloud but he came down safe and unstung. If they are still around after a couple more weeks he'll come back and use more drastic measures.
It's not a good feeling to kill bees but they can't stay there, if only because the chimney needs repairing and that would be tricky with clouds of bees around.