The Bee Slayer

Last night, when I got home from work, I parked my car in the garage as usual and closed the door behind me. The garage opens into a downstairs room and the main part of the house is upstairs.
As I opened the door to the downstairs room, I heard a dull droning hum that I immediately recognised as the horrifying sound of a very large swarm of flying bugs. Inside my house.

Bees, to be exact.

Between the window and the curtains there were about 40 or 50 bees flying around, buzzing like mad. From the crazy buzzing going on I could tell that they were worked up, which didn’t really do anything to put me at ease with having a swarm of bugs in my house.

I slipped carefully past the window, trying not to draw attention to myself – you know, in case the bees saw me and decided ‘this window is dull; let’s sting that person over there just for the hell of it’.

I crept up the stairs and began looking around the house to see if the downstairs room was the only place infested. I found one or two bees in the bathroom, but nothing in any of the other rooms until I checked the spare bedroom. There was a very loud but distant humming that told me they weren’t in the room – they were in the walls. I opened the curtains and outside, there were hundreds of the little suckers flying around and in and out of the vents on the side of the house.


At this stage try to imagine me doing a little freak-out dance, jumping up and down as I suddenly imagine I can feel bees crawling all over me.


As I stood in the room listening, the covered, domed light shade began to fill with dark, buzzing shadows. I flicked off the light, slammed the door shut and ran to the other side of the house, as though 10 metres of distance would save me from death by bee sting.

Several hurried phone calls later we had found someone to come out and take a look - a mighty Bee Slayer !!! (pest control is such a boring name don’t you think?)

An hour or so later in somewhat of a letdown after the excitement of a stinging bug infestation, we were bee free and I had learnt something about bees that I thought I might share with you.

Bees are not as bad-ass as they want you to think they are. Sure, they have that stinger; and that creepy buzzing they do makes your skin crawl. But the truth of the matter is they’re stupid. The reason that the bees were buzzing around in the window and didn’t fly out to sting me to death was because when they get stuck somewhere dark, they freak out and try to fly somewhere where there’s light. They try so hard that they panic, and fly around until they exhaust themselves to death. That’s right – they fly around and around until they die. Not so smart now, are you bees?

Regardless of their stupidity, I’m still happy to be Bee-free. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a big fan of bugs invading my house.