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Honoring Dead Bees
The bee story continues: There has been no bee activity for the past two days. Today I climbed the ladder to the eaves to retrieve the dead bees, and to peer inside the vent holes to see the bee hive for the first time.
Date: 4/16/2007 2:03:27 AM ( 17 y ) ... viewed 2974 times Last night I could hear what sounded like bee humming coming from deep inside the rafters under the roof. Bees cluster at night and vibrate their wings to keep warm; I thought that there might be some still alive--maybe the queen in the hive and her attendants--although the majority of the worker bees were surely dead, their bodies easily seen at the openings to the vent holes under the eaves. Bees are neat creatures--they had shoved the dead out of the 1/4 inch holes in the vent covers, only to have the bodies trapped by the new 1/8" metal mesh that was put up four days ago to keep new bees out.
This afternoon I didn't see any live bee activity at the vents, and only a couple of bees were flying in the backyard. I got up on the ladder to remove the dead bees in the vent openings--it was sad and gross. There were 12 vent holes involved, each vent hole about 3 inches in diameter; 9 holes had dead bees piled inside and three were "clean"--the bees had been using these to get in and out. Gritting my teeth and holding my breath, I pried up the new metal mesh with a screwdriver and pulled out the dead bodies--they fell mostly on the ground where bushes are growing, but some fell on the ladder and some fell on me--I squealed every time this happened. It was horrible but I knew I had to do it: I didn't want the bees to decompose in the vents, but wanted them to decompose on the earth, where their bodies could at least nourish the soil.
After this awful task was over, I burned sage under the eaves; the smoke wafted into the vent holes. Saging over the soil where the bee bodies were lying, I hummed a wordless chant. I'm not sure why the bees came here at this time, yet somehow feeling that they sacrificed themselves for me, I wanted to thank and honor them.
For the past two days, the devices in my house have sounded like bee humming: the air going through the heater vents, the air filter I keep next to my bed, even the refrigerator noises. After my ceremony with the bees, the humming sounds in my house became unbearable; I kept imagining that the entire crawl space above the ceiling in my house was full of bees. Feeling like I was going crazy, I went outside again after nightfall. The entire back yard seemed to be alive with bee humming. Expecting to find a hive hanging in one of the trees, I shined a flashlight all around, but couldn't see any.
Despite my cleanup of all the dead bees, I felt compelled to take a closer look in the vent holes under the eaves to see if there were any bees still alive under the roof. Climbing the ladder and shining the flashlight in one of the vents so that I could see far into the rafters, for the first time I was able to see the hive--it's much larger than what the bee control people originally told me, but not huge. There was no sign of bee activity, and there was no humming coming from the rafters; there were only a few dead bees remaining, lying on top of the hive. Despite what I was seeing, I kept hearing the loud humming sound all around me; it sounded like I was surrounded by bees. Suddenly, I realized what the sound was: it was coming from the backyard neighbor's pool cleaning device; the sound echoed up under the eaves where my head was. I went into the house and still heard humming--all of my devices. Putting on a CD, I turned the volume up so the music blasted loudly to cover the humming sounds.
As I write this, I feel like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings after he's thrown the "One Ring" into the fires of Mount Doom; the realization that his long arduous journey has finally ended hits him and he says, simply, "it's gone, it's done."
The bees are dead. I feel sickened, saddened, and relieved.
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Bee Problem!
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=387
Honey Bees nested in the rafters under my roof! I didn't want to have them killed or use pesticides, and called around until I found an environmentally friendly pest control company.
Bees are BACK!
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=390
I wrote in my blog that I had a bee problem: the bees were removed ecologically, and I was waiting for the bee control people to come back out to my house to put a fine mesh over the vent holes under my eaves to prevent future nesting. Well, nary two days went by and the bees are back!
Dying Bees
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=391
The bees are still here, but dying, and I'm slowly going mad.
Bee Dream/Totem
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=392
I've been obsessed with bees this week. My Native American healer and my "bee-woman" friend both told me that bees symbolize community and one's living situation. I have been desperate to move to Topanga Canyon so I could be close to my group of women healers, yet I feel obligated to stay where I am for the benefit of my children.
http://www.pesticide.org/BeesWasps.pdf
NORTHWEST COALITION FOR ALTERNATIVES TO PESTICIDES/NCAP
Honey Bees are Endangered: "The recent sharp decline in honey bee populations could have dire consequences for many food crops, according to an article in the current issue of The Sciences magazine:
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9607a/beedecline.html
Eco-Friendly Pest Control: for more information about environmentally safe ways to control bees, wasps, and other insects:
http://www.pesticide.org/factsheets.html#alternatives
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