A Bee Named Melissa

[emo_snal]

Monday, March 5th, 2012 - I pull the handbreak, and the pickup sways back on its wheels by some beehives. I step out into the warm sunny air. From this location just on the east side of the mountains that divide Orange County from Riverside County, California, the view as far as I can see is mostly rolling chaparral-covered hills. Beyond the

Comments

[viagra]

My husband and I were literally talking about this just yesterday-we had bees living in the outside wall of our house. They found a small crack and took to it, building a fairly large hive inside the wall. I don't think I would have minded so much were they not getting into the house through an electrical outlet and dying everywhere. Anyway, we call a removal expert who specifically would not kill the bees but just move the hive. When he was busy removing the bees from the wall, they came out and swarmed everywhere, and the bee guy called over my husband.

He said, "They won't do anything to you as long as you're calm about it and don't freak out." And so my husband went, sans bee suit, into the swarm of bees that was coming from our wall, and wasn't stung at all. Many of them landed on him and just walked around before flying off again, but he didn't get stung.

When we were recounting this, my father-in-law mentioned the bees know they'll die if they sting you, so they probably view stinging as an absolute last resort. I don't know if that's true or not, but it makes sense. Then you come along with this entry and it was very serendipitous. I enjoy reading about beekeeping from you!

[mollywheezy]

We once had a swarm of bees in our living room. Their queen had died and they were lost and confused. I paid for the "bee plan" with our pest control folks, and expected I would get a beekeeper to move the bees, but a couple of guys with a shop vac showed up . . . :( They said the bees would die anyway without their queen. I hope that's the truth, because it really upset me that they killed them. Of course, I also couldn't have bees swarming in my living room, especially since I'm allergic to stings. They couldn't figure out how they had gotten in and they wandered around for a couple of hours.

[viagra]

emo_snal would probably know better about whether the bees would have died or not without the queen - I wasn't able to be around for the bee removal, but I think that my husband said the bee guy told him that any that were left (maybe scouts that were away from the hive) would come back, notice the queen was gone, and would go out in search of a new hive to join, but that it was also likely that any other hives wouldn't want the stragglers to join them and they would just end up wandering around until they died. I thought that was pretty sad, too. :( But then, this story here talks about that, too! I wonder if the scout bees just understand that it's part of the job that you might end up left behind.

[emo_snal]

Yeah no yeah the scouts do not "notice the queen is gone and wander off" they very definitely hunker down at the last place the swarm was and wait there forever, or until they die of exposure, whichever comes first.

[viagra]

That sounded more likely based on this story! Sorta sad, but I guess that's bee life. I do wonder if they have some sort of understanding like, "Well, they might not be there when I get back so if that's the case I'll just die I guess."

[emo_snal]

I'm wondering on what basis they were saying the queen had died? It's hard to diagnose from here obviously but I'm not sure in the circumstance there'd be any way to know the queen had died short of seeing her dead body. Kinda sounds like a piece of BS exterminators who knew little about bees just were telling every customer.

Also the "the bees would die without their queen" is sort of debatable. Yes they would die in the sense that all living things eventually die so its not an untrue statement, but lacking a queen would be unlikely to hasten their deaths. It would result in the eventual dwindling away of the colony of bees though as no new ones were being born.

All in all though i think it's likely they knew nothing about bees other than these standard explanations they gave everyone in every circumstance to justify just killing the bees.

[mollywheezy]

They told me that when bees swarm with the queen to move somewhere, that they swarm in sort of a sphere with the queen in the middle to protect her. These bees were very diffuse and random, more in a wide column shape.

[emo_snal]

Nah i wouldn't anticipate the presence or non presence of the queen would effect the shape like that. Residual swarms like mentioned in this story also form tight clusters without a queen.

Describe this "wide column shape" ? Like was it still a solid mass of bees just in a wide column shape? And it was in the house?

[mollywheezy]

It went floor to ceiling, so maybe 15 feet? And was about 4 feet wide and maybe 2 feet deep. There were a LOT of bees in my living room!

[emo_snal]

Wow did you get pictures??

[mollywheezy]

No, I didn't. I actually heard them before I saw them, but I thought I had left the ceiling fan on high in the living room. Then I saw a bee swarm and freaked the heck out since I'm allergic to stings. I left the house as quickly as possible and called my husband, whose response was, "We have WHAT in the living room?! Why are you calling ME? Call the pest control folks!"

So I didn't even think about pictures . . .