War of Stinging Things, Part 2

Plugging up the holes along one side of my house didn't do any good. The crafty bees have found another tiny hole and continue to go in and out. Bees are smart and will find a way in or out no matter what I do. So I searched online, called a pest control company, and found a beekeepers' club in my area. I also found an all-girl bee removal company out of town.

While waiting for my bee guy appointment, I did some more bee research. The pest control woman said they might be mason bees which are common. I got online to look at photos and read about different kinds of bees. Mine look mostly like bumble bees, but bumbles make nests in dirt, not in houses. Carpenter bees will make nests in houses, but they are more brown and black. My bees are brown/black with yellow and rust colored markings:

See tiny bee...click on photo to make it bigger for a better view.

What are bumble bees doing in my house and not in the ground in my garden somewhere? I really hate freeloading roommates. Doesn't matter if they are opossums, rats, mice, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, or...bees. Doesn't matter how beneficial to the earth or how helpful they are in my garden.

 

Bee guy emails me and says there are all kinds of honeybees. I can tell he's very hopeful that's what I have. I hate to tell people they aren't honeybees because no one seems to care about anything else. Bee guy comes and he's looking at the bees. He finally agrees with me they might be a type of bumble bee. OK, I was afraid of that. No one wants bumble bees; they want honeybees. Bumble bees are pollenators and, like honeybees, necessary to agriculture. Some species of bumble bees are endangered. Does this matter? Hmmm...bee guy looks a little disappointed, but he doesn't desert me. Yet.

 

Bee guy climbs up into the crawlspace above the laundry makes all kinds of exclamatory sounds...about the insulation and how thick it is. This goes on for five minutes and with every "ooooh" or "aaaahhh" I think he's found bees and I get excited. I know he doesn't want to be in the crawlspace as he mentioned before it's difficult to get bees out of a crawlspace, but he continues to look around. FINALLY, yes, he sees the hive! I have him take a photo of it:

 

The yellowy stuff.

 

He said it's sealed so there is no entrance into the house that he can see. He calls a beekeeping friend and they talk. We send photos to him. Bee guy confesses he doesn't know anything about bumble bees, but his advice is to leave the hive alone and in the fall he'll come back to see if it's grown. I get the feeling he's just trying to talk me into being satisfied with not having him do anything. That doesn't seem like a very good solution to me. I don't want it to grow! I also tell him I'm interested in selling the house so having a bee hive growing in it is not a good selling point. I try to discuss other options and he confesses he doesn't feel knowledgeable enough to remove them, nor young enough. It's obvious he just doesn't want to do it. Who cares about bumblebees?

 

I'm going to have to keep looking around for some help with this. I don't want to poison them, but I don't want to leave them alone to grow either. There should be a better solution.

 

In addition, this the first year in a long time hornet's are trying to make nests under my house eaves. I've knocked down two so far. My fake hornet's nests are useless. I'm very disappointed.

 

UPDATE: Bee Guy spoke to his Bee Guy friend and they decided if I wait until winter when the bee boy-workers all die leaving the queens in the hive, they will remove them and dismantle the hive. Bee Guy friend who knows bumble bees well said they are very opportunistic and they have found an abandoned wasp nest to use for the season. We don't want to kill them, just remove them from my house. I can wait. I'm happy to have them pollenate my garden.

 

 



My Garbage Can Stinks (A Haiku, sort of...)

 

Purchased new garbage can.

 

Scented. Stinks. Gag.

 

Returned it.

 

The End.

 

NSAID Breakfast-Style (A Cautionary Tale)

I've been abusing the NSAIDs. I do feel fortunately this is one drug I can tolerate at low levels. They sure help if one has a migraine or in my most recent case, a bum foot. Ibuprofen is my drug of choice, the generic rather than the more expensive and popular Advil.

In my youth I lived on ibuprofen taking massive quantities in place of the prescribed Motrin for carpal tunnel pain. I was also prescribed a drug called Tagamet to compensate for the stomach-eating side effects of ibuprofen. I can only imagine what this pain killer addiction did to my insides.

Now my strategy is to take ibuprofen only when absolutely necessary, in the middle of a very large meal, and then wash it down with a very large glass of water. This seems to work, but I still need to watch how much I take and for how long or I'll start feeling queasy.

One of the advantages of ibuprofen besides pain relief is it works as an anti-inflammatory. With any injury, it is imperative to get the inflammation and swelling under control in order for healing to begin. I started popping pills right away determined to heal quickly and survive this inconvenience.

Yesterday I made a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs which is a really good ibuprofen buffer due to the fat content. I chopped and diced the onions, peppers and garlic into colorful piles, whisked up the eggs, and set the table. I have a very methodical approach to food preparation. As the pan heated I removed one pill from its bottle and laid it on the counter. I try to take the pill in the middle of the meal and this reminds me not to forget. I scooped up and sautéed the chopped bits then added eggs.

What is that smell???? I look around to see if I left something near the burner. Maybe it's old food that was dribbled down in the burner pan, but I see nothing. It smells metallic, plastic. Toxic. Not a normal kitchen smell. Not finding anything suspicious I think nothing of it. It dissipated quickly. I serve the food and eat. Yum. Wonderful. When half of it's gone I get up to get the ibuprofen pill on the counter. It's not there. I distinctly remember getting it out of the bottle so I wouldn't forget to take it. I wonder if I'm having a senior moment. Am I old enough to have senior moments?

OH MY GOD! I scooped it up with the onions and sautéed it with the peppers! That plastic smell!

I searched the remainder of my breakfast for any large pill-like shapes. Nothing. Why didn't I taste it in the food? Why didn't the eggs crunch? The pill must have melted in the pan. I was a bit worry about the chemical reactions of heated ibuprofen, but found nothing online but overdose warnings. I threw away the rest of the food.

A half an hour later I felt incredibly queasy and nauseous. My stomach doesn't like sautéed NSAIDs.