How do I destroy a swarm of bees in my yard?

unless you have experience , I wouldnt screw with them because, in a swarm, they are usually not in a stinging mood since they load up on honey before they fly and leave the original hive. After they settle in an area (like your house rafters or downspouts) they get territorial and if its a wet spring, they can get vicious.
Id call your Ag extension office of your county and get the names of beekeepers who will come and get a swarm for their own apiaries. Getting a sawrm involves removing the queen and a goodly cluster of workers. It also means getting in the structure they ve taken over. If its a wall, id forget about trying to save them, then id get an exterminator and have them shoot cyanide in there (you usually remove yourself from the house for a day or so, especially if theyve gotten into the substructure. they dont do any harm they just prevent you from using your house and they can get inside .

my dad had a small bee operation and i helped > I learned enough to know that I didnt like this as a business. I have a few hives in an orchard area and Ive had swarms occur . I usually forget about em cause we live in the boonies. They fly about a mile or so then settle in a stump or a tree.

what state do you live in?

Local sheriffs or town police also typically have a list of beekeepers willing to come retrieve swarms, in case you can't find a number for a local Ag office.

are you sure they are bees? they might be wasps!
where are the living? In some states it's against the law to kill honey bees.

I had a problem like this, we thought they were bees, and in fact they turned out to be wasps. We had several thousand by the time - I got someone to my house to figure out the problem.
We had the bee looking type

If they are yellow jackets then just find the hole in the ground they're coming in and out of then wait until am when they are VERY lethargic. Pour some gasoline down the hole and light 'em up. Little shits, I hate 'em.

We are on a monthly service with Orkin for many years and we call them when we have a problem, but the yellow jackets I like to kill myself.

BP
Mine were in a bush or a whole in the ground in the bush - well I took a 12x12 tarp and gased with a raid bomb!!! little bas'tids

Good job....yellow jackets are definitely the work of Satan......

Definitely.

I'll run for cover and let you mins kill the bugs, tho'.

anythhing that builds its nest out of a paper or dirt base, can kill you, they be wasps, yellow jackets, hornets, ground hornets, mud daubers etc. Hornets and wasps and yellow jackets can keep stinging and dont die with one sting.They attack in big masses,and They also have very narrow waists compared to true honeybees which, although insects of the same order(hymenoptera), have more robust waistlines.
Normally bees will set up housekeeping inside an already made space like between the walls of a building. There they build their honeycombs. They rarely build nests on the outside of structures , and never build paper nests.
In any case, just avoid em if you have less resolve than bi-polar or husker. Ive been stung so many times that Im now allergic and I carry a epi-tool.
Bees are our friends but they can sometimes be testy. Wasps and hornets get meaner as the season gets warmer. They really get bitchy near the end of summer. so if you have problems now, wait till September.

All attacks to their hives should take place in the dark. The old gasoline down the hole, or spray WD-40 up the entrance hole of the paper ball nest. Then torch it. If its on a house or a bush , wrap it tightly in a kerosene soaked bed clothh and , take it far enough away from the house and then, torch it.Dont pay any attention tyo their screams. Those wasp killer sprays work well but, if the wasps get out in a big mass, then some make it past the stream and will nail you.

I too, have to carry an epi stick, after being attacked twice by huge swarms of yellow jackets.

Watch out with torching them though. My neighbor tried it once when bees or wasps started building a nest in a small tree or bush. Late one night my neighbor took a blow torch to the hive. Burned the hive so bad that the bush started a fire. Neighbor ran and hid in the house when he heard the fire engines coming. Some other nosy neighbor saw the fire and called. He came out acting like he didn't have a clue how the fire started.

was torch man in danger of initiating a fire that could spread? Ive actually heard of people who, after starting something like a potential cataclysm, will just run in their house an hunker down rather than try to put the damn fire out.

Off topic but--One time I tried burning out some understory and wild rosebushes in a small meadow next to one of my hay fields. Well, in the middle of the fire the wind shifted and started to run into my field, which , the time being late winter, the grass was all brown and crispy. Well the fire was really something Id have called my fam,ily to come see, if I werent so damn busy trying to beat it out with a broom. The broom caught fire and became more of a torch than a extinguisher. My neighbor over the hill, bless im, called the firecompany and then came and helped me stomp the growing wind whipped firestorm. He yelled at me that
"You oughta get your tractor outa here because the fires coming that way'
I got on the tractor, he jumped on and we drove out of the field ahead of the front of the savanna fire. It was getting serious and could threaten a small cattle shed in the next field. My neighbor drove home to get his weed sprayer all loaded with water and hed return. so we could protect my shed.
In what seemed to be an hour, the fire truck and a 4WD pumper came up the road and, unknown to me, they had this fire tool that emitted water like a giant shower head. (I have no idea whhat this is called but it was the hugest M' F'in shower nozzle Id ever seen. They dooshed the fire and it was out in less than a minute. About 6 total acres were burned and , there was an investigation. The hell of it was, they(the fire company) had a category for the way the fire got started. "Controlled burn out -of-control".
We have a subscription based vol fire company and that year I gave a larger donation so, whenever i park downtown in the fire company area, I get a wave and a "start any good fires lately?" Ill be in my 60s before Ill buy my way out of the "firestarter " reference.Whenever I watch the Red-Green show, and he has an episode wherein they burn down the Possum Lodge or something like that, I say that there but for the presence of a great big truck mounted shower head, go I.

Torchman was a fool. The bush was right next to his house! Lucky he didn't burn the house down.