Bees!

Here's what we've had to deal with when we got home on Saturday, August 11.

We arrived home to a house full of bees! Right before we left, bees had wormed a hole into our playroom. We'd see about 2 or 3 a day, and DH thought something along the lines of "I'll have to fix that sometime." It really wasn't bad, the bees were easily either caught and taken outside or killed. No big deal, right? Wrong!

By the end of the first week we were gone, it became apparent that we had a problem. DD1 stayed at a neighbor's down the street while we were gone, and had the responsibility of bringing in the mail each day, watering the flowers, mowing the lawn, and generally looking after the house. For a 13 year old that turned out to be too much responsibility. She did the best she could, but she really was not ready to handle it even under the best of circumstances. Add to that this bee issue, and she was overwhelmed.

We talked to her about checking on the house, and she said there were bees everywhere. She was afraid to water the plants, afraid to bring in the mail, and well, afraid to be in the house. Now here's where DH and I had a difference of opinion. I wanted to call an exterminator to have this taken care of while we were away. We could've asked one of our neighbors to help out and talk with the exterminator to get things taken care of. DH wanted to wait until we got back.

In my opinion this was a mistake. I don't know that he'd agree though. What we came home to was a BIG mess. The bees had essentially taken over the playroom and the livingroom. There were dead bees everywhere and swarming bees in both rooms. DD1 did a lousy job of watering the plants because she was afraid the bees would get her, and she wasn't able to vacuum up the dead bees because she said the live ones swarmed her when she tried.

There were hundreds of bees everywhere in our house. So DH tried to figure out where they were coming from, plug the hole, and get rid of the remaining live bees in the house. He ended up chasing and catching them with DD2's butterfly net. I know this sounds funny, but at the time it was anything but. I was afraid to take Gracie out to the playroom for fear she'd get stung, nevermind fear that the rest of us would too! So we essentially stayed upstairs until DH got things somewhat under control.

This post is getting too long, so I'll continue later....More to come!