So, There Are These Bees

So, there are these bees that live behind a shutter on the front of my house. I’ve had a couple of run-ins with bees this summer and I’m getting to be an expert in bee control. One of the nests was in a hole in the ground next to my patio. I sprayed it with a can of bee killer and then stuck a hose down the hole and drowned them. The next nest I found was in my basketball hoop/pole/setup. I used the same combination of hose and spray and I added a street hockey stick to my arsenal for the random stupefied bee that I could reach. I don’t consider myself a bee hunter, but I got some skills.

After I finished off the bees on the basketball hoop, I noticed that some flew off toward the house and one landed on the shutter so I watched it for awhile. I love nature shit generally and I had some time to kill that afternoon. I always thought that if you didn’t bother them, they wouldn’t bother you. They have a sort of live and let live policy. I was counting on that. I assumed that they hadn’t heard about me from any surviving hole-dwellers from the drowned nest. That hole was all the way in the backyard, and I highly doubt that bees have a complicated wiggle dance to communicate this message to strange bees from another colony, “Watch out for the human with the long hose!”

So, I moved the ladder from the hoop and put it next to the house so I could get a closer look at the shutter. It’s not a functioning shutter, it just looks like one. It’s actually screwed to the siding. So, anyway, I can’t move the damn thing and look behind it. I climbed the ladder and used the hockey stick to poke around a little behind the shutter facsimile. Naturally, a few bees came out to see who was rocking their world. I took two awkward steps down the ladder and jumped off the rest of the way. I hurt my toe badly, but it didn’t stop me from bravely flailing my arms around my head and running around in a circle. I sprinted into the garage so I could rub my toe and plot my next move.

I had assumed that the bees were too stupid to put two and two together thereby allowing me the time to escape without being stung. The reality was that they made a Borg-like decision to not sacrifice any individual units on a boob in flip-flops wielding a hockey stick. I grabbed a tennis ball and ran out of the garage. I figured that I’d bomb from a distance to torture the bees some more. I threw the ball about eight times at the shutter, hitting it once. It didn’t have the effect I was looking for.

At this point, I’ve gone into automatic ludicrous child-man mode. It’s like a cruise control. Every action that follows the switch is foolish, futile, and ill-conceived and it won’t end until someone gets hurt or something gets broken. The bees were ignoring me. I knew they weren’t in there making honey behind the shutter and I was kind of pissed that I couldn’t get my peek into the bee society that was taking over my property. So I grabbed the hose. I sprayed the shutter from top to bottom with a concentrated spray that I hoped would maim, drown or otherwise dismember some of the enemy. It was pointed out to me later that the window was open.

Some of the bees took flight. I’m still not sure whether the bees that flew toward me were real or imagined, but I turned the hose on what I thought was an individual bee making a run at me. You know, a stream of water from a hose is not like a light saber, so water can go places that you don’t intend if you twist and thrash. It was pointed out to me later that the window of the van was open. Now I’m in a blind rage and it’s time to get the can.

The can is actually labeled as being effective against hornets and wasps. It seemed to work fine on the bees in the hole and in the basketball hoop pole so I figured that whatever poison was in the can would work on any insect. It probably would work on birds, small rodents and lagomorphs too. But, at this point, I’m ready to use a surface-to-air missile on the sentient beehive-mind that is directing its campaign against me from behind the shutter shield. I went back into the garage to get the poison and backed out slowly so as not to attract attention. I climbed a couple of steps up the ladder and prepared to direct a lethal stream of toxins into the gap behind the shutter.

Just then one of my kids comes out of the garage and says, “Dad, Mom wants you to lift something for her.” I often wonder why she doesn’t ask one of my boys to do this kind of simple task. My oldest son is fifteen and he doesn’t have constant lower back pain. He doesn’t work at all. All he does is watch TV, read, and eat. He can lift a damn Kitchen Aid. But, I said nothing because a mighty bee warrior had taken that opportunity to land on my youngest son’s shoulder. My wife would have a fit if she lost her baby to an apian assassin.

I backed down the ladder, holding the can at the ready. I told him not to move a muscle. We circled each other in a Beat It kind of way. I stared at the bee and that hell-spawned drone stared right back at me. It was a Mexican stand-off. I think. It could have been a Killer Bee from Mexico. I wasn’t going to take chances. I had heard that there were more illegal Killer Bee aliens around lately thanks to what I understand are our President’s lax border security policies.

I told my son to stand still and I backed into the garage. I could see the fear in his eyes as he thought I was abandoning him to a gruesome fate. I rushed around, stripping off my shirt, and grabbed some duct tape. I duct-taped the can to my back and came out again with my hands up. I was in no mood. I was also not in my right mind. I slowly approached my son, tip-toeing and talking in a gentle tone of voice, not wanting to give the bee any reason to plug my son. I might even have tried humming, I’m not sure. I told him to be ready for anything and to close his eyes. I reached back, grabbing for the can and three things happened. First, I intended to say something appropriate like “Yippy-ki-yay, queen bee fucka!” Instead, out came the incoherent scream of a tortured soul in Hell when some of my back skin came off with the duct tape. Second, my son dived for cover. Third, I pressed down on the button and sprayed a stream of industrial strength chemical pesticide directly into my ear canal. All of that took place in a split second.

It should have been filmed in slow motion. I have no idea what happened to the bee. My eyes were still closed and I was still doing my mental internal health check to see if I was still alive when my son shook my shoulder. With my empty ear, I heard him ask me if I was alright. I signaled that we were safe now by whimpering a little and kissing the boo boo on my palm that was skinned when I fell. I decided that it was time to leave the bees alone.

I learned a lot from my adventure. I was pretty sure that I would never have to worry about Kahn putting one of those worms in my ear like he did to Chekov. I also learned a new respect for hunters. Well, hunters of animals that can kill you, that is. I still think that people that shoot birds out of the sky with guns or chase foxes with starving, blood-crazed hounds need a new hobby. Finally, I think that bees, though integral to all life on our planet, are vicious, vindictive, vermin and they can go pollinate themselves.