We awoke on Sunday morning to some unwanted guests at our front door. No, they weren’t more illegal aliens, but instead were a swarm of Africanized Bees. Seems that overnight a swarm of the hostile bees had decided to stake out a claim underneath the arch of our front porch.
They sure were buzzing about and making a good racket. Being that we had to get to church, we got into our cars in the garage before opening the garage door and backing out. They seemed to more interested in the porch than the car or the garage.
After returning from church, we called our bug man Festus to see if he did bees. I seemed to remember that he did from his monthly bill we received. He said he sure did and would be at our house soon. Being Sunday morning, I wasn’t really expecting him “soon”. But about 20 minutes later, Festus showed up.
He calmly got out of his truck, put on his bee suit, got his spraying equipment and proceeded to spray the bees. Most of the bees fell to the porch dead or soon to be dead. A few managed to fly away, but most died. Throughout the day, some of the bees that had been out foraging returned, so it still really wasn’t safe to go outside.
To my surprise, Festus arrived back at the house around 5:30 pm. He said he wanted to come back and spray again since the bees that had been away before would be returning. He sprayed once again and the few stragglers were also dead. All of this for a $75 fee! Great deal in my mind!
I suspect we will see a few more bees over the next few days, but hopefully, they will get the message and know that we have no vacancy for them here.
Yikes, that would be an ugly surprise! Those Africanized bees can be really aggressive. I am glad none of you were stung!
yeah, glad we noticed them before just charging out the front door! Was rather surprised they didn’t get aggressive on Festus either… While he was spraying them, only a few even bothered to land on him…
I have heard that since the time of the accidental release of the African Honey bees in South America over 30 years ago, the species has naturally become less aggressive, however I wouldn’t chance it. There have been cases of people attacked and killed after they swatted one bee or accidentally disturbed the swarm while doing construction or yard work.
Wow! I thought I had a bee problem until I saw that photo. Our entire back deck is full of nests that can’t be reached because some genius blocked all access to under the porch. Had pest control come out and spray which took care of 60% of the problem. One of the nests had around 40 bees.
Ugh! Hope the problem is gone now!
* Bernard Doddema, Jr.´s lastest post: Upcoming Special Occasions?
yup… Festus = Problem Gone… 😎
Yikes! I don’t Bee lieve it.