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Ick.
High: Michael's home in an hour.
Low: Dead bees, all over the back yard.
Still "ick".
Calvin. "Bee Fucker Upper Mother Fucker." Bwaaa!
Nothing.
Same as before.
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February 15b, 2002
Close Encounters of the Buzzing Kind
I got out of work early today. My boss sent me home after realizing that she and I were pretty much the only ones left. And so I went (she got no argument from me!), stopped at the video store and library, went home for an hour or so to start cleaning, then went and picked Marie up from school.
When we got back home, I went upstairs to finish vacuuming Michael's room. I'd opened the screenless window wide to air the room out, and I was leaning behind his bed with the attachment to get at the baseboards when I heard pounding feet coming up the stairs. Marie burst into the room, moved the candles off the window ledge, and forcibly closed the window. I shut off the vacuum, and she cried "Oh my God, Laura! Bees! There are bees everywhere!"
I looked out the window, and sure enough there was an amazingly huge swarm of bees buzzing around the tree in the front yard. I told Marie to get the dogs in from the back yard, and went downstairs. I could see bees everywhere, from every window I looked through. Front windows, side windows, back windows - there were bees absolutely everywhere. Marie had been in the back yard messing with the spa, when all of a sudden this cloud of bees came from out of nowhere. She, of course, ran shrieking into the house.
They localized to the back yard, and Marie called from my bedroom. "Laura, you've got to come here and see this!" She was standing at the door that leads from our bedroom to the patio, and she gestured to the eves on the other side of the glass. There the bees gathered, in this huge, writhing clump. Brrr. Just looking at them gave me a serious case of the icks. Seeing them there, looking for all the world as if they were deciding to camp out on my house pretty much freaked me out. I couldn't find a number for pest control in the phone book, so I called 9-1-1. Which isn't as over-reactionary as it sounds. Africanized Killer Bees have been known to hang out in Arizona. Since I certainly can't tell non-homicidal bees from their violent cousins, I decided to play it safe.The 9-1-1 operator tried to connect me to the fire department, and ended up disconnecting me. Which, you know, impressed the hell outta me. So I called them back, and got patched through successfully that time. I explained the situation.
"Ma'am," the fire department operator said, "you know bees tend to do this. Someone must have displaced them from their hive and they're looking for a new place to live. Do they look like they're building a hive?"
Boggle. Well no, not as such. I mean, I see no miniscule hard hats or eeny weeny extension ladders. How the hell would I know if they're building a hive??
I (rather more politely) informed the operator of my ignorance. She said, "If they're not harming you I would suggest you just leave them alone." Since, at that point, I was still freaky-deaky about the whole bee business (and unimpressed with her ability to tell if they're Killer Bees from over the phone), I insisted that they send someone along to assess the situation. I hung up with her, and immediately dialed Calvin, who was on his way back from up North.He is, of course, the expert on bee hives. Every 10 year old boy with a stick is an expert on bee hives. So he regaled me with stories of him messing with bee hives as a kid, with his little gang of n'er-do-wells, Terrors of Neighborhoods and Bee Colonies Everywhere.
I handed the phone off to Marie when I heard the fire truck pull up out front. I cautiously peeped my head out to assess the bee situation, then, seeing none in the front yard, went to greet the firemen.
Briefly, can I just say that the arrival of The Heroes is very uplifting? I was thinking of that scene on "The Right Stuff" - you know, where they're all walking together with that "dun-dun-duunnn" music playing - as they were walking up the sidewalk. I'm a sucker for firemen, even if they're all older'n forty-five and very fatherly in their concern. Thank you.
I talked to them briefly about the situation and let them into the back yard. Then I re-joined Marie, who was sitting on the floor in my bedroom describing to Calvin the action as she watched. They approached the (lump? stack? gaggle?) of bees cautiously, and stood there for a minute looking at it and consulting one another. Marie laughed at something Calvin said on the phone. I said, referring to what the firefighters looked like they were saying to each other, "I'm not gonna poke it, you poke it." Marie erupted into laughter and said, "Oh my God! That's exactly what Dad just said!"
The firemen went back to the front of the house, and I went back out to talk to them. They recommended that we not mess with the bees, because more than likely they would leave by morning. Our eves, apparently, are not typical nesting (hiving?) grounds for bees. They assured me they were not Killer Bees (insert ominous music here), but if they had not departed by the next morning to call them back to take care of it. The issue with an attempt at extermination is that they'd only get about 80-90% of the bees, and the rest would buzz around all pissed and looking for revenge. Since they were becoming dormant and would obviously settle for the night, the firemen saw no harm in leaving them alone and letting them move along on their own. Bees are, after all, necessary parts of our ecosystem.
I agreed with them, thanked them very much for their time, and assured them I would call them in the morning if the bees were still there.
Then I called Calvin back to give him an update. Dude, when I told him I let the firefighters leave without killing all the bees, he was pissed. He wouldn't even let me explain what my reasoning was, and then when I attempted to talk over him (I believe my exact words were "Just listen to me, ya fuck!") he hung up on me. Yes, you read that right. He's 38 and he hung up on me. I was supremely impressed.
Marie and I sat and watched the bees for a while, describing them to her various friends who were calling on the phone ("Dude, you won't believe what just happened..."). The firemen had assured me that it was safe to let the dogs loose in the yard again, so I let 'em back out to see what they would do. They didn't even notice the lump (stack? conglomeration?) of bees at first, then all of a sudden I heard Gypsy do her Gruff Bark. Marie and I looked out the back door, and sure enough the fur on her back was a total dorsal fin all along her spine. Kye was flipping out, looking up at the bees and growling. Gadget was looking back and forth between Gypsy and Kye, every now and then barking up at the air. In the opposite direction of the bees. Idiot dog. I put them in the dog run.I was in the midst of finishing up my sweeping when Calvin slammed into the house, carrying a bucket, paint thinner (boggle), and insect repellant. He pushed past me and into the garage, where he proceeded to mix together some concoction with the above mentioned ingredients and dish soap, of all things. All the while I'm trying to explain to him my reasoning and conversation with the firefighters. He's making it perfectly understood that he absolutely disagreed with my method of "taking care of the situation" and that I did exactly the wrong thing. Since there was absolutely nothing I could do to convince him to leave the stupid bees alone, I subsided with an occasional "I hope you get stung a hundred times" muttered under my breath. I brought the dogs back in, then attended to my mopping.
Calvin went into the back yard. All was still for a moment, then he suddenly burst through the door and slammed it behind him. I could see agitated bees on the other side of the glass. Calvin went into the bedroom, and I followed. He stood, hand on the door handle, and would occasionally yank it open to spray a volley of insect repellant at the (now) swarming bees before slamming the door shut again. The main clump of bees was thoroughly drenched and beginning to dangle in threads as the dying ones hung on for dear life. This went on for a few minutes - open, spray, slam. Open, spray, slam. Calvin got a gleeful look in his eye that I'm sure existed back in his Hive Terrorizing days of olde.
I went back to cleaning.
After a time the bees were either dead or had moved on. Calvin finished 'em off with a final few sprays, then went about spraying off the patio with the hose.
I swear, my life just drops this kind of entry-fodder in my lap as a gift. Because of course the entire time this is happening, one thought occupying my mind (besides, of course, "ick"), was "This is going to make a cool entry." As evidenced by the fact that in the midst of the crisis, I stopped to take pictures.
Calvin just got out of the shower, and has declared himself a "Bee Fucker Upper Mother Fucker." Which is good, because now he has to go do fly-swatter duty on the bees that got into the house.