BEE MOVIE

The Hubby took The Girl to the zoo today. I was relaxing in the front room, reading a book, enjoying the peace and quite when I noticed a hum. I kept reading, but the hum was getting louder. Soon it rose to a steady buzz and I put the book down to investigate. It was like a scene from a B-movie: bees flying, swarming, buzzing like crazy all over our front porch. Holy crap. There were literally several hundred bees. I watched in amazement and then grabbed the camera. That's less than half of them trying to make a couple of Ikea flower pots into their new colony.

I called The Hubby on his cell at the zoo and updated him on our bee swarm. He thought it best to wait them out until dusk, then zap 'em with bee spray. I secured the windows and doors (closed and locked because bees may be able to open doors/windows!).

After reading about them online, I deduced that they were regular honey bees who were swarming (looking to establish a new colony). So I grabbed the bee spray, cracked the door open about an inch and let it fly. It killed quite a few and more started to dissipate. I got a little braver and ventured out the backdoor, armed of course with the bee spray, and went around the front of the house. Honey-filled bees are rather docile according to the interweb but they still seemed pretty menacing in a B-movie kind of way. So I sprayed around the flower pots a bit then looked up on the roof. I guess they like our roof tiles because the couple hundred surviving bees are now camped up there. And since I have used about half the can of bee spray, it no longer shoots 12-16 feet. So the bees will stay put until The Hubby comes home. I think I will go back to reading, but first I'm gonna go cover up my fireplace opening. Or maybe I will just go read in my bedroom with a towel shoved under the door just in case.

EDIT: The bees went away on their own for the most part, so I spared the stragglers. I read more about swarms and it said sometimes they just move on if they don't find a good place to colonize. So either our Spanish-tiled roof isn't a good place to make honey or our attic is going to start buzzing any day now. The Girl is a bit freaked out by the bee carcases that she is finding around the yard (Don't touch!) and the neighbor said he found a dozen dead ones in his house yesterday. So hopefully that is the end of our Bee Movie.