Busy as a Bee

My last post I said how busy I've been this past week. It seems I wasn't the only one around here who has been busy........

In the anticipation of a new sectional that was being delivered last Thursday, we needed to move the couch and chairs that have been in our loft/playroom the last few years. Wednesday night Andrew and a friend moved them out to our driveway temporarily until Andrew could drive them to a dump site on Saturday. On Friday I noticed some bees flying around the furniture - since the fabric was a floral print I thought, "Wow, maybe those silly bees think those are real flowers!!" I went on with my day and made sure the kids steered clear of the area. Saturday morning Andrew borrowed his dad's pickup truck to take the furniture to the dump. All of a sudden he comes running by the side of the house and comes in through the back door while Zach runs in the front door and locks it behind him. I asked what was going on and Andrew said he started moving the furniture and there were bees everywhere. Meanwhile Zach had locked Mason out so we quickly opened the front door and got Mason in the house. We waited a few seconds then looked out our front door and I couldn't believe it -

Andrew disturbed them and I think they got a little angry and were flying around everywhere! We could only open the front door for a few seconds without a bee trying to get in the house. I was FREAKED OUT to say the least. Andrew said it was a swarm of bees which is very typical this time of year. The bees decided to make a cozy little hideout in our furniture. After a little while they relocated to one of the chairs -



(Trust me, we didn't get this close to the bees - it's zoom lens and cropping. )


Ew Ew Ew!!! I called a friend who actually had a swarm of bees in her backyard last year and asked what they did. She said they just looked up someone in the phone book. I got out the yellow pages and saw an ad for a pest control place that said they were bee specialists. I called and talked to a very nice guy who said he only lived a few minutes away and could be to our house in an hour. We hung out inside while keeping an eye on the bee invasion going on in our driveway.
The pest control guy shows up.  He puts on a bee suit and sprays the bees and kills most of them pretty easily. We watched him through our front door and he said it looked like there was about 10,000 bees!! He scooped up all the dead bees to put in the trash and told us the bees had made a hive and showed us where they started to build a honeycomb - it was nuts!!! He said that was very unusual behavior because usually these swarms just move from place to place. He told us there was nothing he could do about the ones flying around, but now that their hive was gone and the queen was dead, they would form into a little ball and die off in a few days. He was very helpful and even helped Andrew load the furniture into the truck when he was done. He wasn't even going to charge us but we insisted on paying him for his time. He even came back out today and took care of the little group of bees that were left. So a big shout out to Williams Pest & Lawn - Thanks for you help!!