Monday, January 21, 2008

Bee Gone

I think it was about two years ago that the boys' Godfather offered to come out to our property and clear our acreage with a bush hog. We were so super grateful because we live in a very lush environment and stuff is just constantly growing and it is just too much to battle.

He spent about half a day out there, working his ass off in the summer heat. This is typical of him, since he is the nicest guy I know. All of a sudden, I look outside and see him leaping from the bush hog, waving his arms around and screaming. I stood there confused while he jumped in the baby pool and splashed around and jumped up again hollering. I poked my head out the door to see him hauling ass across my yard screaming "BEEEEEEEEEES. OH MY GOD, BEEEEEEEEES".

Then I saw them.

It was like in a cartoon, where you literally see a cloud chasing someone. I screamed for him to come in the house, quick, and he ran in and I slammed the door behind him, while he rolled around on my floor and slapped at himself. I screamed at Big Kid to run in his room and shut the door and began slapping the bees off of his Uncle Sam. He hesitated, confused and overwhelmed by the situation, but obeyed when I looked up and saw him and started screaming again.

I told Sam to run into the bathroom and take off his clothes, since bees were still fluttering around inside of his shirt and shorts and to stay in there while I tried to kill the few straggling bees that were in the house. By this time, our screaming had attracted the attention of Mr. Ashley and he killed bees in the house while I looked outside and saw our yard encompassed by a tornado of bees. Every window I looked out of, bees were flying by.

Sam came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and said he had counted 30 stings. I told him I thought we should call 911 but he insisted that we didn't and his wife would come get him and take him to the ER.

I opened the phone book and looked in the yellow pages under "bee" because I didn't know what else to do and it wasn't safe to go outside and luckily, there were listings under that random sounding category.

The bee guy came right out and sprayed this stuff and vacuumed all of he bees up. He was going to take them and make them make honey, I guess. Then he found the hive, which was pretty much the entire interior of a rotten cypress tree that Sam had knocked over with the bush hog. He estimated that we had 70,000 bees in our yard!! SEVENTY THOUSAND BEES IN MY YARD. The tree was just a few feet from the boys' swingset.

Sam turned gray and fainted on the way to the hospital, but they gave him some sort of shot and said he needed to avoid bees from here on out and he was otherwise fine. I truly believe he may have saved one of my boys' lives, because if one of them had stumbled upon it, things wouldn't have turned out so well.

The reason I'm telling you this today is because this morning we were playing on the back deck. We caught a snail and made a habitat (read: a prison) for it. Big Kid named it Darryl Dean. I thought he meant Geraldine, but he insists it is Darryl Dean. He also warned little kid NOT to eat it, or he would be in big trouble.

Anyway, while we were out there I noticed 6 or 7 bees gathered around the sand and water table. It looks like we'll be calling the bee guy again. The worst news of all...little kid can't go out on the deck until the situation has been investigated. It could take days. I've been using that as his personal, oversized playpen and now I'm trapped inside with him.

Send bee free thoughts my way and let's hope the bee guy can get out here soon.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy Shit! I am totally laughing my ass off. Yes I know there are stupid letters you can type instead of the words, but I am not a lazy kid so I don't mind actually typing out the words.
Back to what I was laughing at: not this post because that is crazy about the bees, but the ones below are funny as shit. So glad to hear someone with a voice similar to mine who doesn't mind dropping a few cuss words to get their point across. I thought your description of your aggravation at the gum chewer to be particularly hilarious. I have been known to tell people repeatedly coughing in the movie theater to shut up. Cough drop, anyone? Get up and get the hell out of the theater if you have a coughing fit during the opening weekend for Harry Potter, dumb ass! Anyway, just wanted to let you know you brightened my day!

Anonymous said...

It could be worse. A lady froze to death throwing out her garbage here because it was so cold. Her dumb ass locked herself out of her house in case you were wondering.

~Gretchen~ said...

Hey, didn't that happen on an episode of Flip That House?

Judy said...

Bees - good for honey and pollination, bad for people, especially those who are allergic to them.

Hope the bees find someplace else to hang out and soon.

AFRo said...

Holy crap that's a lot of bees! 70,000!!! Seriously? Could you hear them before he discovered their hide out? Glad to know there is a real bee man out there. I had a substitute teacher in high school that swore he was the one and only bee man. Whatever.

Anonymous said...

OMG that is alot of freaking bees. I hope they leave soon. That would scare the crap out of me. I am not a bee lover, thats for sure

Renee said...

Have you read the Secret Life of Bees? I wanted to learn more about bees and honey after I read it, but I never got around to following up on that one. I think honey is some kinda miracle drug but I'm not sure. I'm so very, very tired right now. (Then why am I up? Why don't I just go to bed?)

-The Renee

Sasha said...

I'm scared of bees. Very scared. More so now.

Red said...

OMG! I would've passed out seeing that many bees! Of course, I'm allergic so bees scare the beejesus out of me.

Sending bee free thoughts your way!

Anonymous said...

Is the rotted cypress still in your yard? The bees may have returned since they try to go "home" once they are removed from their hive. I've read up on the little buggers since we found them living in our wall. Smaller than your hive, though, only about 40,000 bees. Ugh.
Dayna
(love your blog, by the way! I started reading after the Photowow BS.)

Cinnamon said...

How scary and a little fun all in one. I hope that the bee guy has made it out there by now.