30 or 40 ... Thousand!

[aggienaut]

   "Wow there must be like... 30 or 40 bees in there!" says a guy about a colony which is making buzzing noises audible through the wall after we've irritated them. The next day another guy is looking at the bees hanging out in front of their colony in a fence and says "so, there's like a hundred more in there right?"
   I'm constantly amazed by how often people completely don't understand the scale of a bee colony. The thing probably had 5,000 bees when it moved in, and once its well established could have excess of 60,000.

   Today we got a call at a country club. "So where are the bees?" "Well I saw one over there, and then the manager saw another one over there [points at other side of building]" Are you for reals! They called us out for two bees?! We did a thorough inspection and didn't find anything.


   Back at the garage today, we found an emerald-green Cuckoo Wasp.


   Also, today the Wall Street Journal had someone riding around with boss Dave.


   Exactly seven and a half hours until Kristy should arrive!!

Comments

[cedyeus.livejournal.com]

hey, I am in need of bee busting advice.... there is the beginnings of a wasp nest outside my patio of my apartment. It's about the size of a childs fist right now. I think they are paper wasps (saw one that had the really skinny mid section with big backside flying around).

wasps

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Well, unless they make you nervious or the nest is unsightly, they don't actually threaten anyone or cause any structural damage or other negative effects.. though they will eat all your spiders and unwanted pests.

If you find it with no wasps on it just take it down by hand. Otherwise, commercially available wasp sprays should be effective. Or a long pole. We regularly bat them down without use of chemicals but I'm not sure how close its safe to do this from without getting stung -- none of us have ever been stung, but we aren't afraid to risk it either.