Death to Bees!

I can finally declare victory in my war on the bees that had moved in underneath my front step this summer. They are no more. The fancy schmancy "kill flying insects" foam spray from Walmart didn't do the job (although it did thin the ranks). The umpteen litres of water I doused the general area with didn't do anything (Posideon would be proud, I'm glad I didn't flood my basement as a result of the torrents I unleashed). The many shovelfuls of packed earth and crushed stone did little to deter the digging little buggers! No.. It was my good freind, "Quick drying concrete" and their own ingenious choice of nesting spot that did them in..

They must have been like:

"Hey, look at the little hole under this guy's concrete front step! Let's build the nest in there! no one can get at us! They'd have to pull down the foundation to get us out of there!"

Hah hah! They were right. When I first noticed the little striped hueys choppering in an out of there, it was clear they'd been at it a long time. After a few days my kids were afraid to come out of the front door - there were bees everywhere! I got that foam spray 'instant death' stuff and stuffed it in the crack and pressed the button until it came overflowing out the sides but they seemed to weather that attack. All it did was piss off the bees who were out on pollen patrol. They'd come buzzing in, find the hole all full of foaming death and they'd start looking around for the guy holding the spray can(I'd run).

When that didn't work I just got a shovel and filled the crack with packed earth from the garden. That worked for about an hour. Those fuzzy little buggers are like big ants when they're not busy flying around helping flowers have sex. They dug a tunnel in no time flat. I filled that in and they just switched over to their second tunnel "Harry". It was like an episode of Hogan's Heroes.

Then I dug down a few feet and filled in the hole with crushed stone, which only takes a 'bit' longer to tunnel through, and it goes fast when the pollen patrol comes home and starts digging out from the other side. Sure, I sat there with my battery powered electric flyswatter (sparks fly when you connect with that thing) and killed all the ones milling about the filled in entrance, but soon it was back in business. The one thing I did notice was that the bees where getting smaller. I guess after I killed all the bigs ones, they had to recruit the younger bee folks in this time of great need.

Then came the water, oodles of it.. Water water water. I watered the area of the hole was down until I was worried my house was going to float away. Still no luck. As soon as the water seeped away, they were all buzzin and diggin and flying again.

So.. Out came the cement. You guys like it in there? You can stay.. They buzzed like mad in there for a few days, then nothing...

Death to bees!

And I didn't get stung once! They better not find a way inside my house.. Buzz buzz buzz..