My first call was to the Ministry of Agriculture, to get the numbers of local apiarists. Left messages with two of them, asking if they could kindly come and remove the swarm.My husband called and is quite worried that they could be the Africanized honeybees - the kind that go mad and kill people - no more backyard for me, or the dog, until they're gone!
Next call was to the Ontario SPCA - no answer. What the heck? What if there were a dog dying in a closed car in a parking lot or something? Don't they have a responsibility to answer the phone, or at least have a message service?
The York Regional Police were more helpful. They gave me the number for a "bee swarm removal" guy. I called him up, and, less helpful, he's in Schomberg - about an hour from my home. He's going to try to get one of his more local bee buddies to get in touch with me. Worst case, he'll come all the way out himself.
On the plus side, he did say they were not likely to be the African bees, and also that they would probably move along of their own accord in a day or so.
Meanwhile, the dog and I will go for lots of walks, I guess. It's kind of cool to see all the bees (from a distance). I took the picture with a zoom lens when I first spotted them, before I got all worried about them being African bees. We hear so much about the decline of honey bees, I'm actually pretty thrilled to see so many in one place. Just... not at my place, please!
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Oh! One last thing. I think you should go visit Everything Mom and Baby. Erica's got a great blog with two awesome giveaways on right now (an amber teething necklace and a Baby Hawk Mei Tai!). I was super lucky and recently won some Wean Cubes (glass baby food storage) on her blog!
Yes, neat from a distance but I'd be none too pleased if they were in my yard :)
ReplyDeleteOh. My. Gosh!!! I've never seen anything like that. My hubby would have a fit. He nearly knocked me off a cliff once (ok, it was a steep hill) trying to get away from a bee. He's a bee chicken. Hope they go away!!!
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