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It may sound like a strategy for playing a game of chess - but today it was the bees that had the Boots Crescent neighborhood in check. 7news was on the scene.

Jules Vasquez, Reporting
These children may look like they're breezing off in the last days of summer but really they are fighting off repeated bee attacks - scampering to get away from a relentless swarm.

Londra Lewis
"Well I get sting, and all the kids get sting already."

But there's nowhere to run really because the bees live right next to them in this abandoned trailer home adjoining their yard. It may look like some kind of primitive greenhouse, but it's just an overgrown, abandoned piece of junk

Londra Lewis
"We have a camper infested with a lot of bees and we have a lot of kids in the yard. Over the past 10 years the bees lived there with a lot of hives and we would really want them to come and take care of it for us."

Enter the CYDP Bee Capture Unit. They travel light, just one crate with protective gear and a few smokers - and their strategy was as straightforward

Supt. Edward Broaster
"Today what will happen is our Bee Capturing Unit will be coming here to remove the bees from this container."

Troy Lewis, CYDP Bee Capture Unit
"Actually we will just go in and locate the bees, when we finish locating them we will look for the queen and we will put the queen in a cage actually like a trap."

Easier said than done - as the team found out shortly after they suited up. My camera-man Victor Noble did the same and readied himself to go in.

The problems started when this unit member went in without the smoke which has a sedating effect on the bees - and then walked out on the street bringing a swarm with him. Not the brightest move as the attending, agitated swarm sent the block into lockdown as he happily pranced about with bees trying their best to get into his bonnet. That and a sudden downpour forced us to take cover in the rain. And while he was teasing the bees - his unit leader was trying to get the smoker started - in the rain - no need to tell you how that went....

After a long while of mild to moderate comic relief - the rain stopped, the smoke started and we went in. What a scene it was, bees on every surface. The team was trying to break in through the floor where the bees had at least one of their hives.

This is the scene underneath the flooring - but that's just one fraction - they are everywhere - in the walls, in the ceiling at the door - and they're big healthy bees - and keeping them at bay with the smoke proved to be such a job that they had to start a fire inside.

But after an hour of banging away getting to the Queen wasn't proving that simple. The team leader had sagely warned of it before going in:

Troy Lewis, CYDP Bee Capture Unit
"We don't know how much hives is in there that's the next thing it could be 2 or 3 it just all depends on how much queen, so you never know."

Prophetic indeed, and smoking out this urban infestation didn't prove as simple as originally thought - it was a job for a demolition crew not bee-keepers.

Still, they soldiered on, knowing that it would benefit this bee-leaguered family.

Londra Lewis
"We fear for it every day. We ask every single for them to come to move this thing. More than one time we ask public health to come."

What they see as pests, Broaster sees as an opportunity for the CYDP programme:

Supt. Edward Broaster
"Right now with the dwindling of the world population of bees in North America and in Europe I believe that we in Belize are in a unique position and if we can capture these bees instead of eradicating them then we would be able to have us more honey and produce honey that we can supply locally. It is very vital for them economically because a bottle like this sells for $15 per bottle and from the test pilot that we did last year we know that there are great potential for our young people to have a economic benefits from working with bees in Belize and producing honey."

But even if it was oozing out of the honeycomb, it wasn't bleeding thru the flooring, and getting to the golden goodness - proved to be an all day job.

By day's end they had collected four buckets of honeycomb potions and were still working. They continue to work on two hives at this hour and will have to deal with the final two when they return tomorrow.