More than 50,000 bees removed from side of Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery

What’s that buzzing noise above the entrance to the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery?

That’s not the setup to a joke — it’s why a beekeeper spent her Friday morning vacuuming thousands of bees off the side of the museum at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 17th Street NW.

The woman who removed the bees estimates more than 50,000 of them were living on the side of the Renwick Gallery.

Their beehive was nestled between two pillars on the corner of the building, and according to Alonso Rivera, the building manager, the hive contained at least 16 layers of honeycomb.

“This is a pretty unusual case in the city,” Rivera said. “As a matter of fact, the lady that was in charge of this said it was so unusual — because it is, this is an urban area, and for the bees to just build a hive as big as this was, it was amazing.”

The beekeeper used a lift to scale the side of the building, wearing a protective beekeeping suit, and used a special vacuum to suck the insects out of the hive and into containers resembling yellow buckets.

Those containers will be used to transfer the tens of thousands of bees out of D.C. and into a less urban area in Maryland.