...just let me bee...

 "It's not paranoia if they're really after you."

We've been invaded...again...

Or rather, we've BEEn invaded again.

The bees are back, in full force, in the front garden.  Staking their claim and burrowing deep.
Into the walls, and in through the cracks...literally, to our annual horror.

~~~

I'm allergic, you see.
To bee stings. (To wasps and hornets as well...such luck!)
I'm allergic, and they know it.
They've found the weakest link (it's me!) and are clearly determined to take me out. 

~~~

"Paranoia!", you say.  As they build their nest up against my front wall.  As they swarm round my front door.  As they sneak inside through cracks and crevasses and send in scouts to assess the weak points.

~~~

They arrived, baggage in hand, on the first warm day in April and set up camp.  A few grew to a hundred, and then grew again.  We noted their arrival from our front window...their humming and buzzing interrupted by a few dizzying crashes into glass. 

I surveyed the interior wall, bending this way and that, angling myself to check for any cracks where the sunlight was visible.

They waited.

Satisfied, somewhat, with my once-over, I settled down to nurse Henri.  Warm, dappled light through the window.  Soft lullabies.  A slumberous child.

...and...

...a bee...

...that wriggled in from some unspotted hole and whizzed right under my nose, colliding with the window, before furiously buzzing about the room.

I froze, there in the chair, with babe at breast and cold sweat pouring down.

I shrieked, then stifled...aware of but two things...my absolute vulnerability and the safety of my son.

I called for my eldest, then harshly warned him to slow his approach.  Slowly and carefully nudging Henri off the nipple, and into his brother's arms.  Swiftly pulling down my top and grasping for the closest shoe. Waiting for my boys to make it to the safety of the other room and a closed door, before I tentatively stepped forward, shoe raised. 

Okay, okay...let's cut the drama and skip forward to...

1 bee...2 bees...3 bees dead.  Sprayed with household cleaner to stop them in their flight and then thwacked into the great unknown by my shoe.  Pulverized into oblivion by my adrenaline.

Phone calls...three in a row...as each bee died...and my panic at the home invasion.

Caulk, squeezed out in a messy glob, to fill the new hole we found.
Barricaded in the bedroom, behind a door, stopped up with a towel barrier at the floor.

The would-be heroes arrived in...maybe less than due time, but arrived nonetheless, spray cans of poison aloft...and trudged into the front garden bracken.  A hiss of foam...a splash of spray...as the picture window went black and two man-shaped clouds of buzzing sped past, both yelping. 

Oh!

That's a nest!

We...both boys and I...watched in horror as thousands of bees swarmed our home.  The sound of their bodies beating against the windows and door...a roar...

We curled into one another...watching, waiting, spray at the ready.

~~~

We stayed indoors that day.

~~~

The following day, the pest removal company sent an assessor.

Who came.

Who saw.

Who declared himself useless...

Because. Honeybees.

 

Yup.

Honeybees.

A massive colony of honeybees.

With, apparently, more rights than the rest of us.

So off he went.

(With a few phone numbers of potential honeybee-movers.)

~~~

We waited 'til dusk to brave the outdoors.

~~~

A storm rolled through, and pushed the unseasonably warm weather back into summer where it belongs.  With the chill restored, we found ourselves a bit braver, and ventured out of doors during daylight hours. 

A few early morning walks.  A few hours of rock collecting and chalk drawing and stick hoarding.
A few days' reprieve.

...and then the flowers bloomed, and the bees woke up.

~~~

So now we wait...on a knife's edge.  Hoping that they won't find a new way in.  Judging our walking time by both breeze and shade of grey.  Waiting for "the ones who will remove them" to come.

We wait.

I wait.

To feel safe and secure.

To venture out without the need for hyper-vigilance and poison in hand.

I wait for spring's second-coming, and wonder if we'll be able to enjoy it...

if they'll just let me be...bee-free...