Any beekeepers about?
Y’all know we have a honey bee problem. We suspect the main hive is in the attic, but a swarm forms on the outside of the chimney on sunny days every Summer. We have yet to spend the money necessary to get this resolved because it hasn’t been a serious problem.
Today as I sat peacefully in a deckchair, a single bee came after me aggressively. Flying repeatedly into my face, my shirtpocket (!) getting tangled in my hair and, eventually, stinging me on the jaw.
I am absolutely not someone that panics at the sight of a stinging insect. I prefer to sit quietly until they get bored with me. I’ve never been stung doing that.
Thing is, it happened later with two more bees, though not the point of being stung. First time, I got up and went in the house to escape. Second time, I was armed with a can of fly spray.
I was playing the banjo, but I’ve been doing that in the garden for ten weeks, or however long we’ve been locked down. I wasn’t wearing anything different (literally, I wear the same shabby garden clothes every day). I hadn’t eaten anything strange. I wasn’t wearing a scent. I’m a goodly way away from the house, with my back to the swarm.
Swarmed. One bee at a time. What’s pissing them off?
June 2, 2020 — 7:31 pm
Comments: 19
Exciting!
We went to Aldi today. It’s the action adventure I’ve been longing for.
The precautions are all but gone. Nobody stood at the door to let us in one at a time. The floor markers were there for social distancing, but people largely ignored them. There was sanitizer. If you wanted it. Whatevs.
Just afterwards, Uncle B went to Waitrose and said the atmosphere was much more tense and the rituals more enforced. I don’t know if it’s a class thing or an age thing, but there you go.
That’s not our Aldi. It looks like ours, but that picture is from the Pittsburgh Gazette. It’s probably just a publicity shot, not a store in Pittsburgh. You can tell because it’s not on fire.
Speaking of which, please don’t let the trust fund babies burn America down. I may never go back, but I take some comfort knowing it’s there to go back to.
June 1, 2020 — 8:02 pm
Comments: 12