I just saw a story on the USA Today site about a truck of 12M honey bees that overturned on the Trans-Canada Highway near New Brunswick yesterday! The Mounties now say that most of the honey bees have returned to their hives.

 

I couldn’t help but think about how Mako would want to kill all 12M bees! I think that even he would tire of chasing bees after awhile. He let me know that there is a bumble bee hive under the back steps. Initially, I thought that he was hurting moles or rodents. I never though about bees - there! I kept trying to prevent him from killing them but he repeatedly engaged them in battle. I had to knock several of them out of his beard. One was stuck to his upper lip! (I found a hornet in his beard last summer!) He was stung twice that I know of. Those I had to stomp dead in the grass to stop the fight. Then he went back and retrieved the corpses out of the grass so he could eat them! I know that there is a bee shortage so I don’t want this to turn into a bee slaughter (or a sick Airedale). I read on the Internet that bumble bees have small hives that change location yearly. I only have two choices - kill them off with powerful chemicals or learn to live with them until next spring. Each spring, the queen leads them to a new hive. I decided to opt for the latter.

 

I take a squirt bottle outside with us and use it to keep him away from the small hole in the concrete that the bees use as an entrance. It has worked! Mako has abandoned his bee killing ways - at least temporarily - and is off after other prey. Now that he is no longer hanging out around the steps, I don’t even notice the bees. I’m filling that hole next spring, though!

 

The above image of the bee is from Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

 

 Text © 2007 -2008 Blue Zephyr Studios, LLC