Battling the Bees

Our church preschool has been under assault by bees for the past three weeks. The honeybees especially seem to like the lanai area behind Room 2. Only one child has gotten stung so far but the bees seem intent on hanging around until they find another "victim."

Today I went out and searched high and low (and even in the park across the street) for either a nest or some other source for the bees. I could not find a thing.

So, as an experiment, I picked up a child's sand strainer and spent 15 minutes swatting bees. I wound up with "confirmed kills" of 51 bees ("confirmed" means I swatted them, found where they fell and stepped on them). There were also 10-15 others that I "hit" but couldn't find afterwards.

In any case, by the time I finished there were more bees buzzing around than before I started swatting them. My guess is that there is a nest somewhere close by (possibly in the ground) that is "swarming" (meaning it has gotten too large and is releasing bees to start another nest). Hopefully the bees will find a better welcome at St. John's Roman Catholic Church down the street and make their new home there. If not, we'll have to hire the bee-seeking equivilent of Sherlock Holmes to track down the source of the bees and eradicate them.

All in all I learned a thing or two about bees today. One thing I learned is that it is not a good idea to wear shorts when swatting bees. I swatted one right onto my leg where he must have landed tail side first. I did manage to pull the stinger out but I have a large red area on my right shin (that still hurts a little) to show for it.