BEES! Yikes!!
 

:)
No, this isn't travel related, unless you are afraid to travel because you are allergic to bee stings. (which I am, but I travel anyway).
Or unless you come to my house.
There seems to be a bee swarm starting on my patio:) Isn't that just grand?
Has anyone ever seen or experienced first hand a real bee swarm?
Should I put on my hat with the big veil and some gloves and go out there and take photos for my FodorFriends?
I will sit here and read the travel forums while I wait for the bee man to come rescue me..anyone want to tell me a Bee story?
Thanks:)

Scarlett-I have a trick to get rid of them. Take a 2 liter plastic pop bottle and cut it in half. Leave a little pop in it or put some sugar or something to attract them. Invert the top half and put it in the bottom half. The bees will go in but they can't get out.

Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a beeswax! ;)

We got hit with "meat bees" a few years back. Couldn't use our back yard.

May not be polit/correct but I snuck out at night and hit them w/ Black Flag.

Then we dropped in one of those bee/wasp traps. Never had a prob. again.
Ditto w/ some little hives that hang down under the eaves from time to time.

Good luck!
Kal

Thank you darlin, but I can't get out there now-the air is full of bees and they are swarming ~whimper whimper~

I would guess these are hornets or yellowjackets? Real bees (honey bees, bumble bees) are not too aggessive and aren't cause for concern unless you really annoy them. Hornets, wasps,etc on the otherhand can be tricky, especially on a warm humid day. The best way to get rid of a nest or hive is to wait until dark (when they are all tucked away in their little beds), and then hit the nest with lots of hornet spray.

Aahhh zootsie, always helpful:) Thank you, I will keep that in mind for the next swarm or hopefully in our new apt, we will be so far from a bee that I can stop worrying about stings!
Imagine! even the Pup had no intention of going out there! He is sitting here, leaning on my side, hoping I don't make him go out with the beeeeezzzzzzzz.

They probably are yellow jackets. We get them up at the Lake in the fall. There is a vineyard near our house and I swear they get a buzz off of the fermented grapes and get mean.

b'mom, :-? Hmmmm....Those must be the new strain of female Italian bees!
:S-

I was in LA last week and went to the Hollywood at Highlands Mall and there were millions of bees swarming at the entrance to the parking lot... very strange!
Now this is travel related.

Yellow jackets are meat eaters, be very very careful.

I am also allergic to bees but still travel -- although always with my trusty Epi-Pen. Can't leave home without it . . .

Scarlett, what part of the nation do you live in with so many beeezzz? Would like to know in case I'm _travelling_ there. ;-)

A friend (dangeroulsy allergic to bee sting) was mowing his lawn when he stumbled into a bee nest. He fled for his life, with thousands of angry bees in hot pursuit, and ran into the neighbor's house (which we was watching while they were on travel). The bees followed him in and swarmed. He tore off all his clothes because the bees were inside them, and ended up butt naked in the kitchen - just as the neighbors walked in. What would you say seeing your nude neighbor in your house plus a bee swarm in the master bedroom? True story.

Too funny not to top.

YAY! the Bee Man came to see the Beeezzzz and told me they are miner bees:) They like to mine into the ground, there was no "ground" for them to mine on that patio! so they just milled aimlessly about wondering where to go next.
The bumble bees with them must have just decided to come along and bumble with them for fun, althugh they had little bumbles with them, so maybe it was a field trip.
End of the story-sad but true-the Exterminator sprayed them and they are gone but not forgotten.
Thank you for the Anti-Bee tips, I will keep the list in case of a repeat visit :)

My neighbor has decided to raise bees as her new hobby. She has 2 large Rubbermaid looking boxes on our property line. The bees swarm all around the boxes and fly all over our yard. She wears this cute "space-suit" when she's working around there, but we still have to mow the lawn about 2 feet away from it! I think we're going to need to get our own nifty space-suit just for cutting the grass. Oh well, just had to share my bee story with someone! :d

Kimee, too funny. Take care when mowing, and stay out of your neighbor's house, lol.

Oh BEE-have ! ;)

kimee, is that allowed as far as ordinances etc?
If it not, turn her in!! If it is allowed, BEEE Careful! BEEE Safe!
Have a BEEautiful Day~

Our neighborhood association pays a bee guy to come out each spring and spray the entire development.
Bee-leive it or not, he looks like Rick Moranis, from "Honey I Shrunk the Kids"....and acts like him, too! Need i say more?

Oh, he says if he EVER finds a particularly rare kind of bee, the job's on him. Yep, i'll bee-lieve that when i see it! ;)

Oh, and he tells us

When my son was four, he had a major operation that kept him in the hospital for a week. When he came home in pain and with tubes and visiting nurses, we decided to sleep on a pull-out in the downstairs den with him. Lo and behold - suddenly our chimney had a full-fledged hive, and bees were actually getting into the den, aka temporary bedroom! I even got stung trying to stomp on one I had swatted to the ground. The first exterminator I called refused to do the job, saying they were honeybees, and therefore, an endangered species! (We had already been through the same with bats in the attic! Ah, New Hampshire, Live Free or Die. :) ) I did make one call to a bee keeper who was not interested in responding, and then went through the yellow pages until I found someone sympathetic to my predicament. So, Scarlett, there's my "bee story!"

When I was in the 2nd grade, our grade school had a large back portion of dirt land that was "out of bounds" beyond the grassy play area. One day a few of us walked out past the "edge" into the dirt and saw a nest of mud wasps (pretty large and nasty looking) around a hole in the ground. While about 6 or 7 of us were standing near this hole watching these things, some idiot throws a mud-clod right on top of the opening (no it WASN'T me, I was too close and not that stupid). The moment I saw these critters start to march out of that hole, I yelled "RUN!" and took-off running FAST. Some ran..., some stayed behind to get a better look. Well, as you might expect, the wasps swarmed and started attacking. As I was running I could hear the other kid's cries, one about half a horse's length behind me... then I really RAN FAST. I was the only one of the group not to get stung, and about 10 kids went to the nurse (or home and to the doctor) with multiple severe stings that day... and at least one that was allergic. The number of stung increased, because the wasps followed us back to the school buildings where some got it later. For the next week or more we had wasps hanging around the school, and it was a very precarious situation. I remember being really angry that the school wasn't doing anything to get rid of the wasps ("leave them alone and they won't hurt you"), and having to play "duck & cover" for awhile whenever leaving the safety of a room.
:`(

BEEEG kisses to your boy Dreamer2:)

I think the new apt will be at the top of a really high high rise, where beeezzz do not fly!

Scarlet, no BEEE stories but I just wanted to say a quick hello to Dreamer2. We are fellow New Hampshire-ites (sp?). Actually, I was born in CT but live in NH now. Lousy bee story by the way. Yuck.

Hi Puddin!
I noticed you on the Summer thread too! I think there's a few of us lurking in these posts! :) I love all the New England advice here from the "natives."

I agree with your last statement; I think it's pretty cool myself. I think my husband would take issue with the term "native" as far as I'm concerned though....he's always teasing me that I'm from CT....that "suburb of NY" as he calls it but I know I am a fellow New Englander. Such a wiseguy, my hubby...

Scarlett, we did call the township last week to see if it was against the ordinances. They said that they would look into it, and that the only rule that he knew of was that you had to have over 1 acre to have a chicken!! ~:> On another note, the astronaut (aka my neighboor) was working with the bees last night and first had to smoke them (I guess to get them to sleep?) Boy does that stuff smell! :(

kimee,
maybe you should go out there and smoke some of your own stuff :D and knock those beeezzz out permanently!
Ours came back the next day that was sunny, but not so many nor for so long.
Today is overcast and about to storm so no beeezzz today.
How high can a bee fly?

The smoke is actually the bees' best friend, 'cause they can be handled and removed from harm's way, and then recover at their leasure.

Late one night, before having insulation blown between my walls, three rather wild mountain types rolled into my yard and announced they'd come for the bees.

They applied the smoke and then reached into the hive area and the bees attached to their arms and were gently handled into a large paper box, and taken off and released elsewhere on our land.

We feasted on the honey and talked about the bee sawrm and how the amoke pacified them rather nicely. They established a new hive and our insulators agreed to proceed with the job.

We love bees, and in fits of joy refer to being as happy as the "bees knees."