Bees, Bees, Bees Love em or hate em

[Frank S]

Everyone on the planet with an IQ of over 80 knows how important Bees are to life as we know it.
That doesn't mean we want to have them building hives in our houses though, especially the always angry Africanized strain.
The house we are moving to is way out in the country and had been vacant for several years. At least 2 colony's of A/Bees were flourishing under the house and in the eves. Last year when we first started cleaning up around the house I found 1 colony the hard way OK sting me a couple of times and I get the message STAY the Heck away. But to send the entire swarm after me just because I happened to get within a few feet of the entrance is over kill.. It started me wondering if we had fire insurance that would cover intentional extermination by flame thrower. There I sat sealed in my not air-conditioned 30 odd year old pickup the swarm making the sky black reminding me of that movie the Swarm. Anyway I decided that the Bees would win round ONE, I left. About 30 miles away I spied a farm with 30 or more hive boxes. This was enough to cause me to stop an inquire if the person/s would like to have my Bees.
NOT NO BUT( a long line of colorful remarks as to what and where I could do with and how I could put my Bees.
Believe me I am no Sadomasochist I had no intention of putting even a single Bee where he suggested.
Next I stop in another town and locate an exterminator.
No problem we will be happy to place you on a contract for pest control. You don't have any Bees do you?
Yes its the Bees I want gone.
OH! Uh that will be an extra $150.00 per visit Our normal annual contract will be $250.00 due to the distance our service persons will have to travel and that includes 2 visits 3 months apart and 1 visit again after 6 more months the First inspection and spraying will be $500.00 because you say have A/Bees. Those things can be really hard to kill you know. We should be able to rid your home by the 4th visit.
Yeah! Well thanks anyway.
I go online and buy me the spacesuit for Bee control and research a probable chemical Demon WP, the name sounds promising and the stats look good so I order a case of 12 envelopes 4 packets in each.
I'm out less than $150.00 and feel that I can do as well as the exterminator guy. Next trip to the house I carry 30 gallons of water my 1950's B movie space suit the chemical two 2 gallon pump sprayers 2 gallons of cheap bleach 1 gallon of cheap orange scented liquid dish soap My plan was to stop at the end of the driveway about 100 ft from the house and don my equipment , mix up the chemical with soap bleach and water then calmly walk up and knock on the Bees front door with a double barreled spray. The fight was on thousands then possibly millions of A/Bees were dying all around me. Out of ammo back to my truck refill with a swarm of black trying to sting me through my space suit Ha,Ha. stupid Bees don't you know you can't sting through a suit suitable for a trip to Mars in a 1950 movie.
I spray and spray until I am literally having to chase Bees down . I pump 4 full gallons of the stuff into the hole in the foundation, probably just making a large lethal puddle in the dirt under the house but it was round 2 and I was ecstatic
A month later there were still Bees but I managed to get to the carport this time and they didn't swarm on me so I suited up and round 3 was on.
The next time at the house I didn't see any more Bees just 2 or 3 and they were flying around another place. No use in bothering with round 4 . Time passes by several months and no Bees, we start moving things into the house as we replace the kitchen floor and cabinets steam clean all of the carpets haul in furniture hang art on the walls life is getting normal. soon maybe in 5 or 6 more trips we will be ready to stay more than 3 or 4 days at a time and call it our place of residence.
Not so fast young man. the A/Bees decided that they still wanted to call this their home as well only this time in a hole in the eves of the house. I'm stung once again. Out comes the spacesuit more powder and dish-soap only this time I decide I want to do something different I don't want to knock them out of the sky and watch piles of them die on the ground I want them to live long enough to reach the hive wherever that may be. No bleach this time, and only 2 packets per gallon 1 cup of soap and a 1/4 of a 2 liter bottle of DR.Pepper. After all no A?Bee alive can resist Dr.Pepper can they? I spray a couple gallons of my mixture everywhere I think there might be an entrance possibility. I couldn't help it if some thousands of A/Bees did die while I did this enough if them must have lived long enough to reach the hive with the lethal cocktail I had so carefully prepared just FOR THEM.
This morning no Bees this afternoon no Bees. And no I am not going to wash off the sticky stuff.
Next I plan on running off the gofers with my riding lawnmower while dragging my 6 HP soil compacter behind it while I mow

[C-Bag]

What a tale Frank. There is nothing like doing battle with Mother Nature. And even loaded for bear things can go schwangle. Sounds like a confrontation of biblical proportions in your case. Africanized bees and fire ants are terrifying. And I have no doubt there would have been a very bad outcome if you'd not gotten the hell outa Dodge when you did. The 50's Buck Rogers spacesuit brain pic was priceless. That's crazy you've gone to such extent and there was still some bees left! But that are the perils of moving to the boonies.

We lived in the middle of several huge tracts of walnut groves and between being invaded every time they watered the grove by armies of gophers and swarms of carpenter ants. The only aggressive species is this wasp that makes its hives underground. In the mountains we called them meat bees because if you were eating any kind of meat they would land on it and start munching away. Down in the flatlands they weren't as prevalent but way more aggressive. I moved a garden cart under a tree and walked away and all the sudden felt like I'd put spark plug wire on belly. I grabbed my tee shirt and there was something squirming around and bam, got zapped again! I think they bite, not sting. And they don't just land on exposed skin they go under clothing then start in. About that time I realized there were several under my t shirt and shorts, at least 3 or 4. I'm sure my neighbors got a kick out of seeing me spin and gyrate ripping off clothes while dashing for the house. I didn't have suit like yours and with them so close to the house it was tough to deal with because if you messed with them you couldn't go outside. Finally the caretaker of the ranch came by with something old and deadly laying around and put it down the hole and got rid of them.

I hope your A-bees are gone and your move to new digs goes smoothly.

[Paul Jones]

Frank S,

You have a fantastic story and had me laughing all the way through. I have seen many uses of DR.Pepper but this one is pretty funny. I grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey where we had many large trees on the property. In the front yard one of the old oak trees had a hollow trunk where year-over-year we had a hornets nest. They didn't bother us and most of the time I didn't bother them. However, a few times out of boredom, I would take an old baseball bat and wack the base of the old tree three times and run. From a safe distance with binoculars I could see hornets were mad and flying around in formation but no one got hurt. Not a smart thing to do but when you are young, you don't always consider the consequences.

I hope you have solved your A-bee problem.

Thanks for the story,

Paul