>> I can sure think of lots of swarms that occupied large cavities,
>> including a church with wax and honey dripping down the side.

>Yes, but it was a small church!

LOL
Was just thinking about you Aaron.
I'll bet you can tell a rainy day 
without looking out the window
by the flood of posts to the list
from beekeepers shut indoors.  ;)
Cleared up here around noon,
managed to get some outside 
work done.

Heres some true stories about bees
in California which includes a 
story about a church flooded 
with honey.

British Bee Journal, Volume 19
October 22, 1891
Page 479

http://books.google.com/books?id=IsJTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA479&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false

Bees in California.

A friend in Arlington, Riverside, California, sent me
a copy of the Weekly Chronicle, from which I took
the enclosed cutting. He wrote the word 'true' over
the article, and I can depend upon him. Perhaps it
may be of interest to yourself or readers of the
Journal if you can find space for it. So far as I can
gather, bees have done fairly well in this quarter,
although we have had it somewhat wet and stormy
for some time past.—John Peters, Gourock, N.B.

' Who ever heard of a church being flooded with
honey? The very idea sounds ridiculous, and in any
other place than California would excite only a smile
of incredulity. . The average tenderfoot would certainly
class it with the "snipe-bagging" and other attempts to
impose upon his verdancy, while an Eastern man would
undoubtedly snort out something or other about "another
California lie." We have all heard about places that
"flowed with milk and honey," and metaphorical references
to the " droppings of the sanctuary" are familiar, but it
has remained for a swarm of bees to make literal facts
of these familiar metaphors.

' It appears that a lot of vagrant bees, while in search
of a suitable home, found an admirable location in the
loft of an Episcopalian church in Tulare county. Here,
having an abundance of space, they increased and
multiplied, and at the same time laid in a large store
of honey. Great white combs were attached to the rafters
overhead, and were built downward, and added to until
hundreds of pounds of sweetness were hidden away in
the delicate white waxen cells.

' It was, indeed, a bee-paradise. The veiled marauder,
armed with smoke and knife, could not trench upon
the stores thus laid away. Here none of the four-footed,
sweet-toothed enemies of the synonym of industry
could take advantage of the defencelessness of the little
insects. The admonition so often spoken from the pulpit
beneath to lay up treasures above, where neither moth
nor rust could corrupt, nor thieves break through and
steal, was patiently heeded and faithfully carried out.

' One contingency, however, was not provided against,
and, indeed, was not expected. The normal temperature
in the contracted proportions of the loft was of a character
admirably suited for the best advantage of the bees,
and, had that temperature continued, this story would
never have been written.

' It is almost unnecessary to remind the readers of the
Chronicle that a week or two ago California was visited
with something bearing a remarkable likeness to a sirocco.
In a word, it was hot—deucedly hot. To be sure, it was
impossible to locate the area of the heated wave. The
Milpitas Bladder insisted that the weather there was
delightful; but just over the county line the thermometer
showed something like 116 degrees in the shade. The
White Bluff Corporal casually remarked that over in
Platoville it was hotter than Hades, but in its own
immediate vicinage the cooling breezes from the bay
made the temperature delightful. The Los Diablos
Hurled jeeringly called attention to the alleged fact
that the northern cabbage belt showed a temperature
considerably higher than that of the southern potato
section, and in the next breath patronisingly advised
its northern friends to take their oranges in out of the
frost. So it went from one end of the State to the other.
No place could be found to acknowledge that it was as
warm as any other place. By common consent the
difficulty was finally settled by a combined attack upon
San Francisco, where, if the press of the interior were
to be believed, it was hotter than— well, hotter than
Arizona.

' But down in the loft of the church, where the bees
were holding high carnival, the temperature rose and
rose, until it reached the melting point. Wax gave way
beneath the torrid heat, and now, down the rafters,
along the scantlings, over the laths and down the joists,
began to flow streams of liquid sweetness. They found
crevices here and there, and soon altar, pulpit, chancel,
furniture, prayer-books, and all the belongings of the
interior of the sacred edifice were treated to such a
deluge as the world had never seen. Efforts were made
to stay the sticky tide, but these were only partially
successful, and before anything could be done the interior
of the church was a sight to behold, and damage had
been done that required considerable expense and hard
work to remedy.

'Bees develop many peculiarities on this coast which
are unheard of elsewhere. While the eastern bee-keeper
is hard pressed to devise means of sheltering and
protecting his charges through the winter, in this State
the bees frequently evince a distaste for any artificial
protection whatever. Cases have been known where
swarms have left comfortable hives and betaken
themselves to a tree, where, clustering on the limbs,
they have proceeded to build combs and gather honey
as calmly as though provided with all the latest
improvements in movable frame hives, comb
foundation, &c.

' In many places, particularly in the southern part of
the State, caves in the mountain-sides have been taken
possession of and literally filled with the nectar gathered
from the myriad honeyproducing wild flowers. There
is a remarkable instance of this sort of natural beehive
in the Cajon Pass, north of the city of San Bernardino.
In a precipitous bluff rising from the bed of the creek
that flows through the canyon is an opening in the rock
large enough for a man to walk through. Over this a rude
door, made of wide meshed wire netting, has been placed,
so that while the ingress and egress of the bees is not
hindered, the stores of honey cannot be molested except
at the will of the person having the key of the door.
The cave penetrates far into the hillside, and is literally
alive with bees. Away at the back the combs hang from
the rocks for several feet downward, and are literally
black with age. Toward the front many fresh combs
are seen, some already sealed over, and others being
filled with honey. It is evident that there must be many
swarms in the cave in order to have produced as much
honey as is stored away within its rocky walls.

' The bees of California are ambitious workers, and
when their hives are not kept clear of the surplus
honey will put their stores in all sorts of places. The
writer once had charge of a large apiary, and the
season was so favourable that it was impossible to
take the honey from the hives as rapidly as it was
stored. In one case there were three hives standing
on some scantling, with about a foot of space intervening.
Having filled the vacant boxes, the bees next turned
their attention to the outsides, and filled the space
between the hives and also underneath them with a
solid mass of honey. So closely were the hives fastened
that it actually required the use of a crowbar to pry
them apart.

' Down at Temescal, San Bernardino county, near the
famous San Jacinto tin mine, there is a veritable mine
of honey. Actually and literally this is a fact. There is
a large force of men employed at the tin mine, and they
put in their idle time prospecting in the hills in the
vicinity. One Sunday half a dozen of the miners applied
to Colonel Robinson, the Superintendent, for the privilege
of using some giant powder and a few tools. He asked
them what they wanted to do, and they replied that they
had found a honey mine, and proposed to tap it. Laughing,
he gave his consent and an order on the store-keeper
for the desired articles, and, with a supply of pails and
tubs, the men set out on their expedition.

' They were gone all day, and along toward sundown
a sorry-looking procession came over the hill and
made its way to the employes' headquarters. They
had tapped the mine, there could be no question about
that. They were sticky with honey from head to foot.
Hair and beard dripped with it, like unto the appearance
of Aaron when he was anointed, even so that the oil
ran all over him and down to his feet. Their clothes
were liberally plastered with a mixture of honey and
mud; there was honey everywhere. But the tubs and
buckets were full of honey as well, for a rich lead had
indeed been struck.

'But the miners had paid dearly for their trouble. Their
faces were puffed up and swollen, eyes were almost
closed, and there was not a square inch of exposed
cuticle but showed the marks of contact with the
torrid business end of the insects who had been robbed.

' The men, it appeared, had found a crevice in the
rocks whence issued a constant stream of bees, and
from this they judged that there must be a large quantity
of honey in the recesses of the cliff. The opening used
by the bees was too small to admit of the passage of
a human being, and after carefully examining the place
a tunnel was commenced a little way from the entrance,
and after this had been run the right distance an upraise
was put in, which by good luck struck the ledge of
honey in its centre. After a hot contest with the bees
several hundred pounds of comb honey were taken out,
and the tunnel was then closed up. Several times since
additional supplies of the sweet material have been
taken from the cave, which is now regarded as a
permanent feature of the property of the San Jacinto estate.'

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