The Bee King

I was mowing my lawn the other day and went to put the mower in the shed when I heard this buzzing sound that seemed to reverberate from the entire left wall. I looked around and on the floor there was a piece of wood (I keep my wood stacked in there for the stove) about two inches out from the wall. I remembered leaving it there earlier in the year because there was a little mouse bed between it and the wall and I didn't want to wreck the poor critters home. I'm rather partial to the small little mice and they weren't bothering me so what do I care if they want a warm place to sleep.

Anyhoo, seems the mice moved out and the bees moved in. It appeared they had built a nest on the ground between the log and the wall but I couldn't get close enough to figure it out and, being allergic to bee stings, thought maybe it wasn't a good idea to poke my nose in there and verify these suspicions. Now, I'm not sure that I'm deathly allergic as they say its usually the second sting that proves fatal if that's the case, and I've only been stung the once when I was a kid. I stepped on a bee walking across the lawn at the cottage and jumped about three times my natural height...which granted at the time would have totaled to about 9 feet max, but hey, it was a pretty impressive leap either way. That night, my foot swelled to about twice it's natural size and it was several days before I could walk comfortably on it again. So as you can see, I have no desire to find out what that second sting will do. At best I may look like a blowfish, at worst I'll be anaphylactic. Neither are options I'm raring to try on.

Either way, I can't have a bees nest in my wood shed. So I do what I always do when something weird needs fixing. I called my brother. He came over last night to take a look at the nest and see what we were dealing with. I thought it was a reconnaissance mission. Take a look, figure out what bee removal system we needed to engage, get said bee removal system and take care of the problem. But oh no. Craig's solution? Can you get me a jug of water? I'll wet them down so they can't fly.

Wet them down? I'm ready to bomb my shed and he wants to pour a little water on them? I shrug and go get the water. When I bring it back I tell him to try and not trip over anything when he has to bolt out of there like a bat out of hell to escape the raging hoard. He gives me that look, the one that reminds me I'm the little sister and should not doubt his secret powers.

He goes in and wets down the bees. I wait for the stomping to begin, but what happens? From my safe perch on the back deck I hear, 'oh they're honey bees...I feel kinda bad about that...' Apparently honey bees hold a different status in his world than the other types of bees.

Next thing I know, he's picking up the bees on scraps of wood and flicking them outside. One by one. He's saving the bees! Then, the ones still slowly buzzing around, he actually uses a small garden tool to herd them outside. Which from my distance looked pretty funny because I couldn't see the bees just my brother going through these strange motions talking to the damn things as if they had a full command of the English language. No, I said go this way...nooo this way....look don't make me do this the hard way....that's right, out the door...

I'm thinking at this point if the neighbors are watching they're going to think I have some crazy person in my shed suffering delusions.

Eventually as many bees as he could manage were moved or herded to safety, then he went back in and dragged out the honeycomb and the egg things and mooshed them, although not before showing me where the honey was, where the bee eggs were, etc. He is a teacher after all.

In short order my shed was declared a bee free zone and my brother went on his merry way to Staples as it was Teacher Appreciation Day and that meant discounts galore. I was left behind thinking only my brother could make removing a bee nest in my shed a fun little adventure to end the day with.