mynameisben
Half man, half-wit
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2003
- Posts
- 50,215
Not me personally. One of the walls of my home has bees. Not the infamous and deadly Africanized killer bees. No, my invaders are relatively docile, garden variety honey bees. But there are hundreds and hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and they are frighteningly close to my front door entryway. They crept in through a crack in the brick facade that covers the exterior wall, and they've apparently built their nest somewhere deep within, somewhere where I could never get at it without resorting to some degree of demolition. I can't do that. I suck at restoration following demolition.
Last night I donned my home-made beekeeper suit.
It felt like it was 130 degrees in that get-up. I must have dropped 10 lbs. from sweating in the first minute after putting it on. But I am a cautious little weenie. Bees scare the bejeezus out of me.
While the little winged demons were soundly asleep, I snuck up on them like a veiled Stay-puft Marshmallow man. Then I sprayed the full can of Raid insect killer, all 17.5 ounces of liquid death guaranteed to kill on contact, directly into the crack in the bricks where the bees shuttle in and out of during the daylight hours. Immediately after the can went dry, a phallanx of bees shot out of the crevice, presumably harboring feelings of ill will directed at me. Bravely, I dropped the emptied can, flailed my arms wildly, and fled as fast as my overly encumbering bee suit would allow, which maybe was a top speed of 3 miles per hour.
Two houses down the block, I hit the wall. My suit offered no internally generated heat dissipation whatsoever. Maybe I inhaled too much bug spray, I don't know. Whatever the cause, I fainted. Like I was hit in the head with a two-by-four, the lights went out. I fell dead on my neighbor's lawn.
The next thing I knew there was a blurry face and a flashlight and somebody asking me how many fingers he held up. My helmet had been removed, replaced by an oxygen mask. There was an IV in my arm. My clothes had been cut off of me like I was a freshly gutted trout.
I returned from the ER four hours later wearing a blanket (I'll be billed later), having sustained no serious injury. Not even a single bee sting! At least I can take a morsel of pride in that. But otherwise, the mission was a failure. My bee suit is ruined, my killer spray depleted, and worst of all, the dawning of this new day has revealed the same level of bee activity (if not more) around my front wall as before.
Bees - 1, Ben - 0
I may be a failure, for now, but I'm no quitter. Does anybody have any good tips on how to get rid of bees?
Last night I donned my home-made beekeeper suit.
Suit: 2 pairs of denim pants, 2 long sleeve shirts tucked in pants, a Humphrey Bogart trench coat over that, wool gloves, Zip-loc sandwich bags over gloves, duct tape where sleeves meet gloves and where trouser legs meet snow boots, helmet on head, nylon window screening over helmet and taped to upturned collar of trench coat.
It felt like it was 130 degrees in that get-up. I must have dropped 10 lbs. from sweating in the first minute after putting it on. But I am a cautious little weenie. Bees scare the bejeezus out of me.
While the little winged demons were soundly asleep, I snuck up on them like a veiled Stay-puft Marshmallow man. Then I sprayed the full can of Raid insect killer, all 17.5 ounces of liquid death guaranteed to kill on contact, directly into the crack in the bricks where the bees shuttle in and out of during the daylight hours. Immediately after the can went dry, a phallanx of bees shot out of the crevice, presumably harboring feelings of ill will directed at me. Bravely, I dropped the emptied can, flailed my arms wildly, and fled as fast as my overly encumbering bee suit would allow, which maybe was a top speed of 3 miles per hour.
Two houses down the block, I hit the wall. My suit offered no internally generated heat dissipation whatsoever. Maybe I inhaled too much bug spray, I don't know. Whatever the cause, I fainted. Like I was hit in the head with a two-by-four, the lights went out. I fell dead on my neighbor's lawn.
The next thing I knew there was a blurry face and a flashlight and somebody asking me how many fingers he held up. My helmet had been removed, replaced by an oxygen mask. There was an IV in my arm. My clothes had been cut off of me like I was a freshly gutted trout.
I returned from the ER four hours later wearing a blanket (I'll be billed later), having sustained no serious injury. Not even a single bee sting! At least I can take a morsel of pride in that. But otherwise, the mission was a failure. My bee suit is ruined, my killer spray depleted, and worst of all, the dawning of this new day has revealed the same level of bee activity (if not more) around my front wall as before.
Bees - 1, Ben - 0
I may be a failure, for now, but I'm no quitter. Does anybody have any good tips on how to get rid of bees?
