Busy as a Bee

Just when I think things are starting to wind down, the excitement never ends here in old Japan.

This morning I quickly went outside to take my trash out before going to school. I had on a white skimpy undershirt tank top on that showed my black bra, a skirt and bare feet (this is a scandelous outfit in Japan), but I figured I would only be out for a second. I went to put the garbage in the can when I noticed an unusual large amount of bees swarming around one of the trash cans. So much so that I was afraid to go back into my house because they were blocking the front door. So I did what I usually do in a case of emergency, I went across the street to the Arita's.

Her husband came out and sighed 'oh, no' and attempted to move the can more in the front yard. I was expecting about 30-40 bees to be inside the can, not too much of a problem. He lifted the lid and boy, was I wrong. I would say there were 500-1000 bees inside the garbage can. You know in elementary science class or on National Geographic when you watch a program about bees, well that is what this situation reminded me of. All the bees has formed a connical shape around the queen and were starting to make honey. At that moment Arita-san's husband had to go to work and he was replaced by a milkman who knew a ton about bees.

Mind you when I was taking the trash out I had to leave for work in about 5 minutes. Well 20 minutes later the real task was at hand. We had to get the queen off of the lid and into a box so the rest of the bees would follow her. The milkman dressed in long sleeves, a towel around his face and hat and gloves to deal with them. He gave the lid a hard shake and half the bees fell into the box. The other half formed a cloud of bees in the front yard prohibiting me from going in my house or my car. Guess I would be late for school today. They kept on wanting to go back inside the trash can because they had already started producing honey and they were following their own scent. So, if you can remember correctly, bees disperse when using smoke. So we smoked the bees out of the trash can. Then they started to form another nest on my house by the front door. So we had to smoke them off the stoop and then sprayed insecticide to mask their odor. Finally most of the bees were in the box in my front yard and I was able to get my stuff to go to school.

So as I was leaving for school, Arita and the milkman were trying to figure out what to do with a box of bees. Guess I will have to wait and see until I get home.

People about to come to Japan, MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS!!! You never know what might come up...