Plan "B"

O.k. So somewhere I am getting the bizzzness. It seems that S'mee's house is just full of springtime hope and the neighborhood bees are loving every square inch of the property. While Thor and I traveled to Utah, a swarm of busy bees landed in our locust tree and made a hotel of it for a week or so. #3 called about three days into our trip to let us know the happenings at home, one of which were our flying guests.

We drove home on the appointed date and found they were still hanging around; literally. I took a quick snapshot or two of the little(?) guys and went to research on the computer. (If you click on the photos you can see a better - up close- vision of what I am talking about! Note the size of the tree limb to the diameter of the bees clumped around it! Mommy! That's one freaking bunch o' bees!)

One thing I found was that on March 18th of this year a woman had a similar swarm attack her car as she drove into her driveway. Seems the woman was too afraid to exit her car and began to drive away from the bees at her house that now targeted her vehicle's windows with darting little head butts... for 2 miles! She was frantic and began to call on her cell phone to local authorities. She called the police, fire dept., animal control and even code enforcement to no avail. NO ONE would help her. Finally she found a pest control service who gave her the name of three bee keepers. Two never returned her phone calls, and the third was an elderly handicapped man who said for $60.00 he would try his best. His assessment was that she had Africanized Bees, who like to defend their space, so much so they would indeed follow her for 2-3 miles if need be to get her to stay away from their new home.

After refusing the elderly man's offer, the woman checked into a hotel and hoped that they bees would move on. They did. Officially the report in the paper said they moved on and probably found a new home somewhere in the neighborhood. Did I mention this woman was our neighbor by ten houses?

Now here we are. S'mee, who has an unnatural, yet strong distain for pretty much anything that creeps, crawls or flies; and Thor who is the king of the do-it-yourself-ers. After doing a tad more research I was determined to call a bug guy out and pay him whatever he demanded to get rid of these bees, "killers" or not. I didn't want to take the chance. The research stated that if the swarm hadn't moved on in 3-4 days, chances are they like the new home and are building a hive. Grrrrreeeaaattt! Not. These bees had been here for over a week! I was getting nervous.

Now a side note here is that the front yard has been needing some attention. #4, came by to "get cool and eat your granola bars while you were away!" -so he was sitting on the couch when the phone rang. "Thor's residence, may I ask who is calling?" "Oh, well S'mee is on vacation right now, can I help you?" "hmm, well, no thank you; but I will pass the message along. mmhumm, thanks, bye." Seems a gardener had called and asked if we wanted yard work done. #4 felt guilty eating granola so he got up and began to do the yard work himself.

He cut down a small tree that has needed to go for a year, and trimmed another, the one the bees are sitting in at the time. (if you look closely at the photo you can see the fresh cut limbs just below the swarm!) He pulled weeds and raked and hacked, and went on hhis merry way, NEVER noticing the buzzing pile of bees directly over his head! When asked about his work later he replied that the large brown clump just looked like dead locust buds and he couldn't reach that branch without a ladder, or it would have been trimmed as well! YIKES!

No harm done.

So Saturday and Sunday go by and S'mee is getting more nervous with every passing minute. Monday: Thor has come up with a plan that will be implemented TONIGHT! after work and after we all are in for the night. I am still freaking out.

We kiss each other goodbye for the day and Thor walks out side. Thor walks back inside. "Babe, come look at the bees, they are really flying!" We walk out and the entire swarm is now in a frenzy and flying all over the place. We pop back into the house and shut the door after us quickly! After a few minutes they are gone. DISAPPEARED into the sky to who knows where. So I guess I will never know if these were regular honey bees or Africanized bees; either way I am glad they have moved on!