Covered in Bees!

I love bees. I love that they make honey and beeswax and pollinate our food. When I see fuzzy bees buzzing around flowers, I am happy. I am concerned about the decline in the bee population. I someday want to have a hive or two. Today, however, I had a bee encounter that wasn't very happy.

I was gardening on my tiny balcony, happy as a clam that the weather was finally nice enough for me to want to garden. There was a bag of things that needed to be composted sitting on top of a pot filled with dirt (but with no plants). The bag had been there for most of the winter because I had been too lazy to bring it to the compost bin in the parking lot. I gathered up a newer bag of stuff to be composted and the old bag and walked into my apartment.

I felt something sharp and stabby over my shoulder blade, and then I immediately saw a bee flying around. Then I felt something stabby in the back of my neck, and my arm, and OH MY GOD! There were bees flying all around me, stinging me. I realized they were coming from the old bag of stuff that had to be composted. I had the presence of mind to fling the compost bags back out onto the balcony (screaming all the while - turns out, I scream like a girl). Then I did a crazy run/dance into the kitchen trying to rid myself of bees. They eventually left me alone and went to the windows. Just then, my friend called to confirm our plans for the evening. I answered the phone sobbing and in a bit of shock. She suggested putting out bowls of sugar water to attract the bees, and she also suggested vacuuming the bees with a long hose. The bees were still quite agitated, flying around my apartment, trying desperately to get back to their hive.

I lit some incense (also suggested by the aforementioned friend) to try to calm the bees down (if beekeepers use smoke, why not try it?). My cat thought that the bees were great fun and was doing her best to catch one, which freaked me out. I didn't want her to get stung too. Eventually the bees settled down. There were 5 or 6 total. I sucked 4 of them up with my vacuum (crying all the while. I wanted to let the poor bees go home, but I didn't want to let any of the ones that were outside into my apartment, and I certainly didn't want to get stung again. I hated killing the poor bees that hadn't done anything to me). I trapped one of the bees between the screen and the window in my kitchen (I also feel dreadful about that). Because I'm not entirely sure if there were 5 or 6, there could be a bee in the belly of my cat, there could be one hiding somewhere in my apartment, or they could all be accounted for.

Looking on my balcony, it appears that the beehive is somewhere in the vicinity of the big pot that the compost had been resting on. It could be in the pot or somewhere nearby. I'm certainly not going onto my balcony today to try to figure it out (though I might check it out tonight when the bees are in the hive). Now I need to find someone to remove the bees, which I'm sure will be another adventure. Hopefully, they will make a beekeeper somewhere very happy.

I also have to mention the irony... I'm on a dating website, and my user name is a variation on Covered in Bees! (from an Eddie Izzard bit). It turns out that being covered in bees isn't very fun.

:Edit:
I just found the 6th bee. It has been vacuumed up with the rest of its cohorts, and my apartment is once again free of bees.