Friendly Invaders

It started on a Saturday afternoon. The weather was beautiful, the sun rays showed their amazing play on the surrounding evergreens. I was standing by the kitchen sink, washing dishes, and was looking out on the window. I knew something was out of place. I was not sure what it was at first. I slowly closed the faucet, the water stopped running. Stillness. For a minute I was just standing there looking out of the window. I heard them before I saw them. It is not something I seen before, so I was unsure what was really going on. I just stood still with a million thoughts running through my head. What it that sound? My body just moved like if it knew that I had to do. I went to investigate. Took a closer look. I went outside to the front porch. Walked to the side of the house and stopped. Here they were. Many of them. Buzzing around happily by our roof. Their little wings flopping enthusiastically, exploring, checking out the place. I have to say it was the perfect spot for them. I was standing there trying to count how many. I think it was about 50 or maybe a 100 to start with. I was just standing there watching them. I was not sure what kind they were; I was just hoping that they were friendly. I knew that this was lucky in a way, we do need them, and their numbers have been declining for a while. They are in danger from so many things. I intuitively knew that this was also a problem, and also that I need to try to save them.

Their little bodies were covered with fuzzy, yellow, and black striped coat. Honeybees. They were scouts and decided that our rooftop would be a perfect place for them to move in and build a new nest. Their visit was exciting and worrisome at the same time. I started to call around friends and people we knew who knew more about bees to get some ideas that might help us what to do with the bees. I also started searching for ideas and learning from others more about the bees what do they like what they do not like. I learned that they do not like cinnamon and moth balls and like lemongrass. We did not want them to make a home in our house and started to come up with ideas how to gently move them out. We found someone who had an extra honey box that they brought to our house. They set it up on top of one of our small buildings next to the house. We made cinnamon water and started to shoot it up with a water gun, squirting it up to the rooftop where the bees were. Stuffed some moth balls up to the area as well. The buzzing were so loud we could hear it through the ceiling. Sleeping and wondering what will happen was difficult.

The next day was also warm and beautiful. The buzzing got louder, and the dogs got terribly upset, they kept barking and barking continuously. I got the puppies inside and went outside to look around. The buzzing got extremely loud. Nothing I ever heard before. I just listened for a while. Then, I walked outside by the side of the house and looked up. Well. The day before I had seen maybe 50–100 bees, now, they were everywhere. Thousands of them. Time has stopped. I stood silently, amazed, and shocked at the same time. I was scared and excited. The bees covered the whole house, it was a huge swarm. The weather changed suddenly, and the rain started. We have not seen the bees again for a long time and kept wondering if they have moved into the bee-box or not. It took about two weeks before the weather got warmer again. We heard them first, then I started to see them around the bee box. It was extremely exciting. We sent pictures and videos to the beekeepers. It seemed the bees moved into the box. I felt relieved. After about another week the beekeepers come and took the bees away to their home. When they lifted up the box, they estimated that there were about two pounds of bees in the box. I never even heard about bees referred by their weight before. I was glad that the bees now had a safe home and they moved out of our house. I found out the next day that two pounds of bees equal about 7,000 bees. We had saved 7,000 little lives. It made my day.

Save the bees.

Thank you for reading,

Gabriella

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