ChshreCat
Well-Known Member
Stumbled on this on Craigslist today. Got a chuckle out of it.
Honeybee Swarms - Call, Don't spray!
Honeybee Swarms - Call, Don't spray!
Honeybee Swarms - Call, Don't spray! - $1 (Eastside)
Reply to:[email protected] [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-05-23, 10:27AM PDT
Well, swarm season has finally begun, and I think that capturing a clump of several thousand stinging insects is just about the perfect way to start a morning. Yes, if you are lucky that hive in the wall or the tree may throw a monsterous tornado of bees which will roar like a thousand vacuum cleaners and send you scurrying for cover before setting up a temporary home on your lamp post. (I admin, that wouldn't necessarily be lucky for you, but it would certainly be lucky for me, especially if I'm the person you call). Swarm season, when honeybees leave home and hit the road in a writhing mass or cloud of bees. Fear not - that swarm is like a lost puppy, just looking for someone to love it and take it home, not set it on fire, spray it with pesticides, swat at it with a board or beer bottle. While the sight and sound of thousands of bees in the air might be frightening, bees are rarely in a better mood than when they swarm. There's no need to throw rocks at them, spray chemicials on them, poke, shake or otherwise disturb - just call a beekeeper, preferrably me. I'm a beekeeper who will gladly rescue you from those bees, and more likely those bees from you, as long as I can actually reach them. As the weather warms the bees will turn to thoughts of reproduction. For them, reproduction means "Half of us are taking our honey and moving out. You keep the brood, I'm taking the honey."
Why are they swarming?
If you believe horror movies, honeybees swarm only for the purpose of attacking nubile young cheerleaders. If you believe neighborhood associations, honeybees swarm only to lower property values. If you believe science text books, honeybees swarm only to fill in three to five paragraphs that would otherwise be wasted on a "how long does ice take to melt?" experiment. Actually, Honeybees swarm for one reason: to produce a new colony. That swarm of bees has just left its old home. They have too much dignity to sit outside the starbucks with a cardboard sign saying "Will buzz for honey", so they are looking for a home. With the honeybee in such decline due to pesticides and disease, I want those bees to have a home. I want those bees to have a home in one of my hives. Left to their own devices, that swarm will eventually find a home. It won't be as nice as one of my hives. It might be in the wall of your house, or your attic, or a mailbox, or a tire. If that's the case I won't remove those bees for free, and neither will most other beekeepers. So call when the swarm is still hanging from the branch, not when they've already marched into your chimney!
Do:Contact a beekeeper - preferrably me. Jason Nelson - 425-7364942, 425-739-6872, or mail me via this post link or at [email protected]
Don't:Spray, Poke, Throw, Disturb, Mangle, Spindle, Punch or Fold that honeybee swarm. Unless you are nubile young cheerleader on the set of a horror movie, it's unlikely the bees have noticed or care about you. If you are a nubile young cheerleader you can feel free to mail me, swarm or not. I am not young, I am not nubile, unless nubile means "slightly overweight and balding." For this reason I'm not afraid of swarms. If you aren't me, don't mess with them. If you wouldn't do it to a toddler under while under video surveilance, think more than once about doing it to that honeybee swarm.
Don't:Call us for wasps, hornets, or mosquitos. You cannot get honey from a mosquito at all. We do not remove yellow jackets. I'd rather remove thirty thousand honeybees than a nest of yellow jackets. Honeybees are peaceful by nature. Wasps are the warriors of the insect clan and they are rarely in a pleasant mood.
Don't:Expect us to remove bees from the wall of your house or shed or tire or hotwater heater or truck tailgate or bathtub or light fixture (yes, really) for free. If you have a hive in your electrical service box, leave it alone. You may get stung or electrocuted or both and while it would be quite amusing to read your obituary, odds are people would blame the bees rather than you. Tip: Plugging in the toaster each morning does not qualify you to work with high voltage and or stinging insects.
Don't: Mail me telling me how cell phones are killing the bees. The only way I've ever seen a cell phone kill a bee is when I set the phone down on it. Unless you are telling me a truckload of cell phones turned over, crushing a row of hives, I find it unlikely that cell phones are responsible for many bee deaths.
Don't: Expect us to recover a swarm 100 feet up a pine tree. Those bees, they're God's bees now. If he wants them he can come and get them. I have neither wings nor parachute but I do have a morbid fear of death.
We all want this story to have a happy ending, one that involves an adoption to a loving home. All it takes is a phone call. You'd do it for a box of kittens, right? And you can't even get anything edible from a kitten without violating a lot of animal cruelty laws and ruining a blender. We all want to save the whales, and whales don't pollinate, produce wax or honey. I say feed the kittens to the whales and let the whales fend for themselves: Save the bees!
Thanks
Jason Nelson
Learn more about honeybees, beekeeping and swarms.
One lovely thing about craigslist is that it appears to be the social equivalent of a whirlpool, collecting every oddity known to human kind. Thanks to the kind mails I've received, I now understand the following:
1. "IM WATCHING U FOR YOUR POST": Thanks, strange craigslist luker. It's great to know that you are watching for me, and thanks to a post. You should consider medication, socialization, or perhaps even leaving the cover of your house to venture outside, or, as I like to call it, "The big room with the yellow lightbulb during the day and the twinkly things at night." Out there, there's food that did not come from a can. There's water which can wash away even the most persistent stench. Rumors have it that in the meadows and fields outside frolic "womyn", curvy soft sirens who will undoubtedly remind you of mom before her surgery, or dad afterwards. Try outside. It's hard to watch craigslist from there but there are much better things to watch.
2. "YOUR POST IS TOO LONG TO LONG TO RED." Again, thanks, craigslist lurker. I forget that in this day and age if it can't be said from the keyboard of the phone, it isn't worth saying. Can you imagine the gettysburg address if Lincoln had had to write on on a razr? "LNG TM AGO DUDES WE MD NATION. K THX BYE". Yeah, it loses something in translation. The good news is that sesame street is still on. There you can daily learn that "C- Caaaah" and "AT - aaaat", when they collide, make "CAT", or as I like to call it, "Lunch that runs from you." And elmo and grover can make cat without texting at all! Sadly, even this response is probably too long for your 126 character mind, but one can hope.
Notes from Last year: Postscript: I already have to re-iterate - do not spray anything on that swarm. Not RAID. Not gasoline. Not shaving cream (yes, woodinville shingled house owner, I'm talking to you - do you know why you never hear people saying "Just spray some shaving cream on that bee and it will go away" ? because shaving cream is a lousy way to deal with flying insects, moron), not AXE cologne. AXE smells nasty when it's on people - can you honestly blame the bees for objecting to your precious little snowflake spraying it on them? If he'd sprayed it on me I'd have been really unhappy too. The difference is that I have no stinger on my rear end, something I really regret from time to time. One day DNA grafting will be real. It may take a while and I might be an old man, but at that point you and your AXE spraying spawn had better stay off my lawn.
Keywords that annoy the hell out of people: bees, bee, honeybees, beekeeping, swarm, swarms, radioactive mutant cannibals (ok, if you are looking for those this ad isn't really going to help. I suggest that if you are looking for radioactive mutant cannibals, you check into sewers near toxic waste disposals or take up a career in politics)
