Bee Gone

My buddy Bob from Virginia e-mailed me that he feels like life has him caught in a loop right now.

I can sympathize.

It seems like I do the same things over and over, from changing the light bulbs that burn out, to fixing the loose floor tiles in the bathroom, to dealing with clogged drains in the basement, to putting air in my bike tires, etc., etc., etc.

Here's a recent story to illustrate . . .

Our mailman left our mail tied in a bundle at our front door with a note one day. Either get rid of the bees that were nesting hear our mail slot, he wrote, or else no mail delivery. We had never noticed them before but we checked and, sure enough, there were these tiny bees merrily flitting in and out of our evergreen bush next to the house.

Time to get medieval on the insect world. I emptied two cans of that foamy hornet and wasp killer on that bush. The next day the bees were still merrily flitting in and out of the bush as before. Not only didn't my spraying not kill them, it didn't even seem to p!#s them off.

Mess with Big Dave, will ya? I browsed hardware stores, home and garden centers and the outdoors section of big department stores. Read the labels on a dozen insecticides. Ironically, not one stated that it killed bees. The label might say that it killed 180 other insects includings wasps, hornets, aphids, mites, and mealy worms. But nothing about bees.

So I settled on a bottle that attached to my garden hose. It said it killed scorpions. Certainly, it would do a number on my bees. I sprayed and sprayed, soaking everything within 15 feet of my mail slot. The bee activity subsided. Success, I thought.

But soon our mail was tied in a bundle again and placed next to the door. They were back. This time I sprayed directly into a small opening among the evergreen branches which the bees used as some kind of open air highway. Next day I was peering into the opening, checking for activity, when a couple bees circled around my head and disappeared into the opening as if saying, "Excuse me, neighbor."

Now there seemed to be more bees than ever before in my bush. It's like there was a party in there. Maybe they all were getting high on the insecticide fumes. Heck, I want to kill them, not get them dangerously addicted.

Oddly, they don't seem to harbor any grudge against me. I've known some nasty bees. Like those mafia hit bees that chase you out of your garden with, "Whatcha think yer doin'? Get otta here." Or even worse, those wasps that seem to come after you if you just switch to country music on your portable radio outside.

My bees haven't bothered me or my wife. Why they're terrorizing the mailman I don't know. Maybe they're like your territorial house dog in that regard. Hmmmmmmmm. Maybe I could say they were pet bees. Think the mailman would buy it?