And About the Neighbors.......

The house next door to me has been on the market and vacant for about a year.  Other houses in my area of Atlanta sell the minute they are put on the MLS, but not this one.  It's a really pretty house, but needs updating and has an odd floor plan that doesn't work well for children - at least that's why the realtor told me it has taken so long to sell.

I'm currently renovating my kitchen and since my house is very tiny, I've moved to the finished attic to live for the forever number of weeks it is taking to finish the job.  So a few days ago, I was sitting on my upstairs bed, talking to my friend Gina on the phone, and gazing out the window at the roof peak at the side of my house.  As I am watching the exterior of the house next door, I realized I was looking at what may be honey bees flying in and out above a second floor dryer vent.

The dryer vent looks like it is on the second floor and as you can see is rather high up since the house has a basement, a first floor and then the dryer vent.

I don't have a powerful enough zoom on my camera to get a clear picture of the insects flying in and out, but they do act like honey bees.















When we were little my Daddy used to say a poem to us:

"Daddy!"
"Whatcha' want?"
"I see a bear..."
"Big bear or a little bear?"
"Little biddy bear."
"Eat grass and watch him"
"Daddy!"
"Whatcha' want?"
"I see a bear..."
"Big bear or a little bear?"
"GREAT BIG BEAR!"
"Run for your life, run for your life!!!!!"

I keep thinking about this as I watch the bees flying in and out of the hole entry above the dryer vent.  Do I eat grass and watch 'em or do I call the realtor and tell her the news.  You can see the hole entry above and to the left of the center of the dryer vent.

I have tried to photograph the insects with both my phone and my camera but neither have the necessary zoom capacity.

So a couple of days ago, I called the realtor.  I told her I thought there might be honey bees living above the dryer vent.  I told her that there are five beekeepers within a block of my house and although I thought they were honey bees, they were not likely to be my honey bees since bees when they swarm to a new home, generally go at least a mile away if they can.  I gave her the names and numbers of three master beekeepers I know who do bee removals.  I also offered my phone number for the owner (whom I don't know - the house was rented when I moved in next door) in case he had questions.  I hung up relieved but still a little wary.

Finally this morning I decided to take a pair of binoculars upstairs and look out of the window.  I think these might NOT be honey bees but rather yellow jackets.  One view through the binoculars looked like their bodies were more yellow than orange and more pointed at the end than the bee.  I am giving you a blurry photo which is the best I can do so you can see what YOU think!

When I talked to the realtor, she told me the house was pending contract, waiting on the inspection and the loan.  She commented that the inspection had already happened and the inspector did not notice the insect activity.

At least it has me thinking about the new neighbors and I will certainly take them honey when they move in and possibly (as one of my friends suggested) my Canadian honey buttermilk rolls!

Thoughts about Bees in the House

One of the costs of having my beehives on my deck is that bees inevitably end up in my house. Even when I haven't opened the door to the deck where the bees are, bees ride into my house on the backs of my dogs.

I keep the outside lights off at night to lower the rate of attraction. They come in anyway. If they don't come in with the dogs (which is how the majority of the bees enter the house), they come in on my hair or my back after I've visited the hives.

Yesterday I was cleaning up because my one year old grandson spends Fridays with me. I began counting the numbers of dead bees I was vacuuming up. I stopped when I got to 30 because it was depressing to think of all those bees, slamming their bodies against the ceiling lights (which is how most of them die). Granted, I had been out of town so it had been about a week since I had vacuumed, but there were a lot.

The bees mostly experience death by light bulb. In addition, I also find dead bees on the floor by the glass walls between my den and the sun porch. These bees die by desperately trying to get to the light bulb on the other side of the glass and I suppose kill themselves by repeatedly throwing themselves against the glass.

I keep a drinking glass and a postcard by the door to the deck and rescue 3 -5 bees a night in the house. Even after being rescued, these bees may go back outside and simply die there. By the time I capture them, they have already gotten my attention by throwing themselves against a light bulb.

If I keep things relative in my mind, I realize that each hive has 20 - 30,000 bees or more at this point and 30 - 40 dead bees in the house over a week or so is not so big in relationship to the colony as a whole.

But I do continually feel bad about it.