Things Go Moo In The Night…

(Since I don’t have permission to use names, I’m being vauge on purpose.)

The press is coming!!

Which is actually a good thing because once we discovered that our bees were not wasps, but in fact honey bees, neither myself nor Erlend wanted to exterminate the critters. But they have to go. What to do?!

Killing them woudl be such a shame because of all of the colony collapse disorder and honey bees disapearing in droves all over the world! Personally I think killing them all off would be quite irresponsible too, in light of the dearth of honey bees. Hence our desire to have the bees removed rather then exterminated.

So we’re kinda on a “Save The Bees” kick and it seems that the local press is very interested in helping these honey critters to live and be relocated.

We have the local radio station + one of the local papers coming here to the hoose.

But in an interesting development, we also have two beekeepers coming as well! The local paper called (sorry, no names!) and told me of a lady that can help, gave me her name and number, and wished us good luck. Well, said lady actually called me! We chatted about the situation and then it turns out WE KNOW EACH OTHER hahahaha! Too funny!

Having two beekeepers coming is a good thing too because now the press won’t have to be worried about “What are we going to do to save the bees?” and can report on a hopeful outcome while also broadcasting the story and possibly enlisting the invaluable help/knowledge of more bee people.

(Also, the beekeepers can do most of the talking and that’ll get me off of the hook hehehehe)

I’ve been informed that removing this colony from our lum is “going to be hell” so any help will be deeply appreciated ~ especially by the bees!!

I’m actually not all that nervous about the press arriving because they’re not coming here for me hahaha! So I can relax. They’re coming for the beezees.

We’ll have the radio station, the local paper, and two beekeepers aboot ~ all while, get this: a man from the department of agriculture is here inspecting Erlend’s silage pits.

And here I thought that our 3rd anniversary was going to be a dull, non event!

Yeah right. On a farm????

Flying Cat, that clever feline indeed, was spot on: I said to Erlend last night, “Well… I did want to try my hand at keeping bees. But not inside of the hoose!!”

So, anyhoo, it seems that K~~~ and H~~~ up the road not only rescue me when my tarts blow up in the oven but they also specialize in rescuing panicking pregnant ladies from an infestation of bees. While K~~~ called around to try and find a bee getter-outter, H~~~ hustled down to the farm (in an antique car no less!) and closed himself in the bee-ridden livingroom armed with a can of wasp spray. I heard a lot of moving aboot, shots of spray, silence, more moving aboot… and H~~~ soon emerged with the bottom of a pasta sauce jar full of wriggling bees. They looked like honey bees to me. I don’t think that our lum dwellers are wasps.

H~~~ then whipped out a folding ruler and proceeded to engineer a Fireplace Blocking Device created out of cardboard and duct tape. With this in place we soon had peace and quiet in the livingroom.

Until this evening, at exactly the same time as yesterday evening! All of a sudden… the livingroom began to fill up with baffled bees!! Only they were anything but agressive and always stuck to the window in a desparate bid to escape. So Erlend got rid of the bees and then we perched in the livingroom and watched the cardboarded fireplace like a pair of hawks. A bee appeared, then two more… but we had no idea how they got out! An hour or so later we saw two bees wriggle their way out of a weensy crack in the mantelplace!!!!!!

I give these bees much credit for creativity… “C’mon, mates! Just follow the light!!”

Erlend set upon this (and every other crack he could find) with paper towels and stuffed everything good. Then we sat there and listened as a massive swarm of honey bees built up behind the cardboard. TALK ABOUT CREEPY!! I was just in there working on my book (by now the wean had been bathed and put to bed) and all I could hear was bee upon bee buzzing away just behind the cardboard, looking for a way to escape…

I fled. It’s all just a bit too Alfred Hitchcock for me!!!

With that said… are there any beekeepers aboot that might be able to help us remove the bees from the lum without having to kill them? Because their days are numbered otherwise…

(Seriously, I could write my own “Katie Morag” version of life on Orkney!!)

If we didn’t have a baby in the house I wouldn’t be so desparate but this isn’t funny any more.

Our house is being overrun with bees due to a hive being made in our lum! Even stuffing the fireplace isn’t working ~ they scriggle around it and they are flooding our house!

Erlend tried to find some kind of pest control company in the phone book but failed. Does anyone know of any pest control company on the Orkney Mainland that can help us with our bee infestation? I went outside to have a look and they came after me ~ these things aren’t joking around! I’m worried about Elspeth!!!!

Thank you!

Mummy can’t open certain windows in the house because then we are invaded by bees (of all things!) and endless numbers of enormous blue bottle flies. So we can only have a few windows open and that means it’s still hot and sticky in the hoose! I kept fussing about this but mummy thought I was asking for a sook. No, I don’t want a sook! I want to get out of this hot yucky stickyness! Ohhhhh I can’t wait for it to cool down ~ it’s not like farmers go to the beach on nice days. No, they WORK.

Mummy finally caught on to why I was so crabby and she put me in my little baby bath. I had so much fun splashing and playing with my rattle! Now I’m cooled down and I can try and have my nap. Mummy has angled the big window shade so that it directs the cool breeze right into my Playpen Of Delights.

Mummy’s note: Elspethy is learning how to say “mama” only she says “nah-nah” instead. For several days she’s been saying it randomly. “NahNahNahNahNah…” but today when I went out of sight I heard her little baby voice call out, “Nah Nah?!”

That so totally melted my heart!!!!!

(She’s 8 months old now.)