Tuesday, May 25, 2004


Well it's Spring, alright. Yesterday I came home for lunch and my whole front yard was abuzz. There were thousands of bees swarming in front of the house. Fortunately, the back yard was clear, so I went in through the back door. By the time my lunch break was over (30 minutes! How uncivilized!), the bees were gone... or so I thought.

When I pulled into the driveway yesterday evening, I saw a dark mass on the wall of my house. For a second, I thought it was a squirrel, but I quickly came to the realization that it was the bees.

Lets back track just a little. A few years ago, a woodpecker started pecking holes in my house. He made one big hole, which I immediately repaired, only to have him peck three more just like it. I'm not digressing here. This is important.

I didn't repair the new holes for fear that they would multiply threefold again. Well, the bees found these holes and made a home of them. That's right. A beehive in the walls of my house.

Janice went next door today to warn them that we had a swarm afoot, and to keep an eye on their kids. It turns out, they had the same problem recently, and their bees found their way into the house. They successfully killed them off with a poison that they still had plenty of, so they gave the bottle to Janice, and I gave them a good dose of it today.

The holes they are nesting in are close to an upstairs window, so I opened the window and sprayed. I sprayed the flying bees, as well as the interior of the hole. They were flying all over the place, but I wasn't being stung, so I didn't worry too much.

Finally, the humming sound of the bees grew to loud. It seemed like they should be all over me, judging by the sound, but they weren't. Then I realized they were going crazy inside the wall. The whole wall seemed to hum.

Then I noticed an awful lot of bees in the room. I knew one or two had come in before I closed the window, but now there were dozens. They had found a little hole next to the windowsill (darned old houses and their nooks and crannies). With a little more interior spraying, I had finished them off, but they might still want to come in through that hole.

I kept an eye on them as I mowed the grass this evening. There was a lot of activity outside the hole. Maybe the survivors can't get in, or maybe the spray had no effect. We'll see.

That's all.


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