All a-buzz

[pjthompson]

So this morning, sometime between 10:30 and 11, I'm sitting in the living room looking towards the kitchen, which has a big plate glass window. I notice that what I can see of the window through the frame of the kitchen door is filled with bees flying every which way. I jump to my feet and run to the window and sure enough, the front yard is filled with them, swarming everywhere, hundreds and hundreds. They seem to be concentrating on the bougainvillea bush. Slowly, they all sort of "dissolve" into the bougainvillea—in other words, they're filtering in there a bit at a time, taking up residence, presumably because the queen has decided to rest there. Still several dozen flying around the outside of the bougainvillea and in the yard, but that great mass of bees is in there. What's worse is that the bush abuts the roommate's car parked in the driveway and there isn't any way to back that car out without brushing the bush, and in order not to walk into a mass of bees, she's going to have to get in the passenger's side and scoot over.

First, I called L.A. County Vector Control. They're supposed to clear the bees for free.* They took the report, but couldn't get out here before tomorrow. We're both too freaked to wait, so we start calling bee control contractors.** Most have their answering machines on, but I do finally find a live human who answers the phone and agreed to come out between two and four.

Then about 2:30 I hear this strange noise out front: a kind of scraping noise, or like somebody's spraying something, and I think maybe the pest guy showed up and went right to work so again I run to the window. Hundreds and hundreds of bees are streaming back out of the bougainvillea, heading towards the center of the street. They buzz around over the median strip for several moments, move into my neighbor's front yard across the street, then as if on command (following the queen, I imagine) they shoot between two houses, heading west. There are still dozens of bees buzzing around the bush, though, so I decide to have the bee guy come out anyway. We finally get bold enough to go out there and I'm glad he's coming because there's a big, pendulous hive of them attached to the side of the bush—in exactly the place we always brush with the car when backing out. That would have been a fun encounter. Apparently, the swarm had split again and this was what was left. They move about a hundred yards at a time, according to the bee guy, so who knows where they came from?

The bee man got here at four. He said it's the season for them to start splitting up as new queens emerge. He's a busy man these days and took off for another appointment after he finished here. "Don't come out here for at least a couple of hours," he warned. "Bees are going to be coming back looking for the hive and they're going to be angry." There's dozens of them still buzzing around the place where the hive used to be.


*According to bee man, they only work for free if it's on public land. Since the bees were on private property, I'd probably have had to pay, anyway. Fortunately, the contractor wasn't exorbitantly expensive. If it works.

**One creepy side note: one of the people I called and hung up on when I got the answering machine called me back about an hour later. I hadn't left a message, so that means they've got some kind of software that harvested my number before I hung up.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

That's scary. Did he spray to remove their hive? I remember, when I was younger and living back east, they often had to burn away things like yellow jacket and hornet's nests.

[pjthompson]

Yeah, he sprayed, then he did some kind of smoke thing. There are still plenty of angry bees out there. I hope they move on to better things soon.

[purdypiedad.livejournal.com]

Oh, my. I think I might prefer my black widows.

[pjthompson]

At least they don't swarm into pendulous hives, *but* it's a lot worse if they bite you, so...

[hominysnark.livejournal.com]

Aieeeeeee!!!

*shudders*

(and my phone stores all numbers that call me, whether there's talking or not, so it's not super-creepy that they would call you back)

[pjthompson]

Our sentiments exactly. I felt like I was starring in a schlocky TV movie for awhile there.

And I guess that's somewhat reassuring about the phone. Although I said to the woman, "I don't remember leaving a message," and she laughed and said, "Well, I got the message." It's still kinda creepy.

[darkspires.livejournal.com]

Quel horreur! Were they normal bees or Africanized ones? And how lucky that you spotted them before the room mate went out in the morning.

I only had one similar experience, and nothing like as bad as that. I was digging in a park flowerbed when my shovel unearthed a hornet's nest. Dropped tools and ran for the truck with alacrity. Went back armed with heavy duty bug killer, backed truck up and got everything ready before I opened the door. Discharged cannister on the nest and fled back to the truck to go work elsewhere. The forman sent two guys to dig out the nest a couple of hours later.

[pjthompson]

We didn't get close enough to them to determine if they were Africanized or not. I felt bad about killing them, actually, because we need the bees. But not bad enough to have them living a few feet from my front door.

Hornets! Bwoogity! You're a brave woman.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

Fascinating! I've only seen a swarming hive once and luckily it decided not to settle. Apparently what you do over hear is to call the local bee club and they will send someone over to harvest the hive and give it new home.

[frigg.livejournal.com]

"over here"

[pjthompson]

I would have preferred that, but getting anyone on the phone on a Sunday was a challenge. The beeman, when he got here, said LA County Vector Control is recommending killing the bees as they're carrying viruses...He was kind of a BS-er, so I don't know how much faith to put in that.

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

That is both really creepy and amazing.

[pjthompson]

Objectively, standing back from it and behind closed doors, it truly was amazing. I really was rather awestruck. I didn't want to go out of doors, though. :-)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Do you know if they were honey bees or just waspy bees?

I guess probably not honey bees, as those seem rather rare these days.

Pretty scary to be besieged by angry bees!

[pjthompson]

I have no idea what they were. They looked pretty small. How does one tell the difference between honey bees and Africanized? I've been thinking the Africanized are bigger.

And, yep, scary—in a primal, god-isn't-nature-awesome kind of way.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Honeybees have fuzzy bodies; wasps have smooth bodies. The Africanized bees are honeybees--just more aggressive than European honeybees. Honeybees eat nectar; wasps are carnivorous.

[pjthompson]

Actually, I know the difference between wasps and bees. We get the occasional wasp mud nest around these parts. I just wasn't sure how to tell the difference between European honey bees and Africanized.

I felt bad for them, either way.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh--oops, I misunderstood. Yeah, I don't know how to tell the Africanized bees from the European ones.

I understand about feeling sorry for them. I like bees, myself.. actually, I've always kind of wished honeybees would come make a hive in my yard, and I've even thought about doing bee keeping. But the more aggressive bees are kind of scary--though they do give honey too.

We had wasps living underneath a trash barrel outside of our back door... fortunately they weren't very aggressive, so we could go in and out without worrying about them. All the same, when the cold weather came, I dug up their nest... I didn't want some kid to get stung. But I felt bad.

[pjthompson]

If I had plenty of land and they nested away from the house I would have let them be, but the quarters were just too close.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I totally understand.

[cathemery.livejournal.com]

Yikes!

I don't think I'd go out there for a couple of *days*.

[pjthompson]

By nightfall the flying ones had all disappeared. There were walking wounded on the ground, but they were pretty much on their way out and not much of a threat. But there are dead bees *all* over the driveway this morning.

[rowanda380.livejournal.com]

erg, I hate bees!

[pjthompson]

I don't hate them, per se, but I don't want to live with them! They scare the pants off me. :-)

[geniusofevil.livejournal.com]

omg, I know what happened! There was a new queen and she took half the hive and split to find a place to make a new hive! That's why they were swarming, they fly in a big ball like that and when they rest the queen is usually in the middle!

My Bee Book research is paying off! To bad you didn't catch them yourself and start your own hive. Baby.

[pjthompson]

Yeah, I know. The beeman said as much. And he said the hive split again because there was another queen, and that's the bunch that took off through my neighbor's yard. It's kind of a fascinating display of nature. But NIM(F)BY.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

That sounds like it'd be awesome to see...
for about thirty seconds. Then I'd be done with it and would call the bee guy like you did.

My phone keeps all the numbers, too. It's just a call waiting thing (though my friend in L.A. who called me was simply identified as 'California.')

[pjthompson]

Yeah, awesome to watch, but the whole stung by a million bees every time you get in the car, not so much. ;-)

Did you think the Governator was calling you when you got "California"?

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

If I did, i wouldn't have picked up -- he'd probably have been asking for money, just like every other call i normally get.

[pjthompson]

Ha! Don't I know how that goes...