Sunday, July 12, 2009

Let me tell you about the bats and the bees

Last weekend was a typical weekend, Bryan was home and working on projects, weather was nice, and that's when it happened.
Honey bees on my soap porch, just a few at the window, but more than you would normally see together. Now I am allergic to bees and not to happy about the visitors. As we continued to watch more and more bees arrived, we have a hive somewhere. Luckily the porch is closed off from the house so the bees didn't extend into the main part, well a few did, but they were easily dealt with.
I would have to call someone to deal with them, my concern was the problems honey bees are having these days, I really didn't want to have to have them killed.
Meanwhile, mom read online that they do not like citronella, so we filled an oil burner with the oil and began burning. Now I like citronella, to an extent, but this was pretty powerful stuff, 100 % uncut essential oil. It seemed to be working while there were plenty of bees moving in, there were also plenty dying on the floor.
The exterminator is coming Tuesday am to do the deed.
I go outside to put the rabbits away for the evening when mom comes out to tell me that Sarah said there is a bird flying around in the house. No problem we have had starlings in before. Only this isn't a starling, it's a bat. Now I like bats, from a distance, in an open area. Up close and personal in my house is another things. Every girly vision of bats stuck in hair, dripping fangs etc start playing in my head. Mom and I armed ourselves with broom in an attempt to mildly stun the bat so he could be moved to the great outdoors. haha.
The girls still thought it was a bird, we thought that best. After awhile, he quit flying and we got braver, venturing into the living room. Sarah went upstairs to get her blanket and innocently asked "what's that?" pointing to the little guy hanging from the ceiling.
So we came up with a plan to catch him in a net. That was funny. Finally we hit the internet again. Step 1, leave room, Step 2, open window (i know these are not in correct order, but take what you can), Step 3 turn on lights and bat will leave on its own. Well it did work, we hope.
Tuesday rolls around, exterminator shows up and does the deed. I also had him check to make sure the bat was no longer in our belfry.
No signs of bats or bees, and so far no sign of honey dripping through our walls to show where the hive is.