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Bees and More Bees

Last week, our VP posted a note on his Facebook page about how a bee made him scream like a little girl. I ended up on a conference call with him the next day, and thought I would tease him a little. I mean, one little bee doing that to a grown man? Turns out, it was thousands of bees congregating under the eave of his house. All I could say was "Ewww", and I never hope to have to deal with that many bees.

Segue to last weekend when I was home in Oregon for a visit. While I was at lunch with my Mom, my Grandma, and my sister, we got a call from Dad, saying that there was a swarm of bees in the garden, surrounding one of the fruit trees. I wasn't too concerned at that point. At least, not until we got home, to find out what a "swarm" meant. There, in the garden, surrounding the apricot tree, was a round cluster of THOUSANDS OF BEES! It was as BIG AS A BASKETBALL! Needless to say, Aunt Tracie was completely creeped out, and ran into the house, and she did not return to the garden for most of the weekend.

My Dad made some calls to some local beekeepers, because of course, what do you do when you have THOUSANDS OF BEES in your garden? Dang beekeepers never returned his calls. So he went online to see if he could get any tips. Nothing much there, either. I of course was thinking that there were 9 grandchildren around who like to play back by the garden, so my first thought was KILL THE BEES! But my Dad, being more Christ-like than I am, couldn't bear the thought of it. That, and he was hoping for plenty of good pollen for his garden.

Finally on Sunday, he called my Uncle in Iowa, who used to keep bees. It seems that if a beehive gets too crowded, the Queen and about two-thirds of the workers will go off to look for a new one. They will send scouts out to search for a good spot for nectar, and then all converge on it once they've found one. So, lucky for us, we had a yummy-smelling young apricot tree. According to my uncle, there was nothing to worry about (??), and they would eventually go away in a day or two when they found a new spot.

Thus began the countdown. They remained there all through Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning. When we returned home for lunch on Tuesday, the bees were miraculously gone. Guess my uncle was right. In the end, there really was nothing to worry about, and all that's left are a few memories, and some garden plants that were all of a sudden much larger than before they arrived. So much for our very own Bee movie.

(Disclaimer: No humans or bees were harmed in the making of this picture.)

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