A few weeks back, I woke up to the sound of an angry bee buzzing in our bedroom window. Slightly disturbing, of course, but it is summer and that does tend to happen from time to time (however, the window was closed and had been all season, so it's always a bit of a mystery as to how they find their way inside). Not really a big deal, overall--Jeff got up and took care of it and we went back to sleep. I didn't really give it anymore thought, but a couple weeks later I found a new dead one on the window sill. Very strange, but no harm done. I left it there and the next day when I came back, there were two dead bees now. All right... That's enough of that.

I got the handy bottle of Raid out and soaked down the whole inside rim of the window and screen. That will show them to stay on their side, right? Sure it will. No sooner did I decide that everything was adequately soaked than do I hear a loud buzzing in my right ear. AAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I never did see the bee that came after me, but I blame that mainly on me running out of the room yelling, shaking out my hair and stripping off loose articles of clothing (since, as I said, I never found it and I wasn't very keen on discovering that it was hiding out inside my shirt). So after this episode took place, about a week ago, it's been somewhat of a nightmare. Everyday, there has been at least one more new bee in the window and when I finally called the apartment manager's office, there were at least ten dead ones on the window sill. As far as we've known, only two or three of them have made it past the blinds and curtains and into the room itself. Jeff spotted a nest up in the area where the roof meets the bricks. When the maintenance guy came to the rescue, he sprayed the nest, knocked it down, sprayed the window again and replaced the screen. Sadly, this didn't fix the problem. Not only that, but while I'm sure the nest up above wasn't helping anything, I don't think it was the direct source of the bees that were coming in to say hello. I'd been watching them crawl into a little hole on the outside near the bottom corner of the window for most of the week. That corner has been sprayed and sprayed and it doesn't seem to slow them down at all. Also, they're not coming out the other side (the inside) when they crawl in the whole. What does this all mean? I have horrible visions of a gigantic nest inside the walls. I am most decidedly not pleased about this. I have been an utter basketcase all week long. Two nights I even refused to sleep in the room.

I finally had Jeff play Spiderman out the window (fifth floor) and seal up the holes (the ones we know about, at least) with bathtub caulking. Seeing as how we did it at midnight last night, most likely we sealed them inside so I'm just praying that they don't burrow in even deeper or come through the wall completely. I kind of don't think I'll be sleeping in there tonight either.

And through this whole ordeal, I swear I can hear them buzzing. I chalked it up to paranoia and my imagination up until yesterday when Jeff said he also could hear a phantom buzzing, though neither of us could find a bee to blame it on. I haven't heard it today, so maybe my psychosis had just rubbed off on him... Or maybe sealing up the holes was just enough to get rid of them and/or make the rest of them move on elsewhere (hopefully somewhere far away).

I've never wished so hard for winter to come.

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Before And After

Would I get a discount if I birthed the baby in the store? - 5/16/05
The end is near? - 5/13/05
The progession of me - 5/10/05
Cleaning update - 5/7/05
Pre-nesting - 5/7/05