Thursday, September 6, 2018

The bee man cometh.


While others sleep Bob and Sophie and their master prepare for the arrival of the bee man. He's coming at first light while the hive and its occupants are still dozy.


A gentleman in his late 30's arrives. He's driving an Opel estate with a variety of aluminium ladders strapped to it. He sets up the ladders, clambers onto the roof and uses a drone to see where the bees are nesting. Angus and the PONs find this use of technology to be interesting.


Satisfied that he knows the ins and outs of the bees sleeping arrangements the apiarist comes back down and dons a blue bio-hazard suit. The PONs don't like the look of this at all. After a howling, designed presumably to let me know there is something large and blue and untoward in the garden, they retreat to a safe distance to watch events unfold.


The bee man shimmies back up and disassembles the capping's on the smoke stack. He then ties a rope round the base of the chimney, clambers up onto it and lowers himself down inside.

As many of the bees as possible are collected and taken away in a large thick brown cardboard box. A few irate left-behinders buzz angrily around. He finally sprays all the chimneys with a chemical that repels bees to prevent them forming a new colony. '' It's completely safe. Cats don't like the smell but the dogs will be just fine " he adds.


There are a few broken tiles but all in all it's 120 euros well spent.

Angus has developed classic flu symptoms. Runny nose, sore throat, itchy eyes. ' The Font ' goes to the pharmacy to get something to make him act less like a ''grizzly bear ". The pharmacists says '' That's not the flu. Everyone is suffering from it. It's ragweed allergy ". Seems that the heavy rains earlier in the year followed by the long period of high temperatures has turned the whole area into ragweed heaven. Angus looks up ragweed and finds that Google directs him to this young mans helpful advice. The video is quite spellbinding. He apparently says 'PACE' at the end which presumably means something to a younger generation : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEsfMrtk5Cs







15 comments:

WFT Nobby said...

Let's hope that's the bee problem sorted out for a good long while.
Being a perennial runny nose sufferer (worsening with age) I too was spellbound by the video. Pace Angus! (No I have no idea what it means either - I don't suppose he's mispronouncing the Latin...)
Cheers,
Gail.

Anonymous said...

Is he saying 'peace ?'

Taste of France said...

Did the €120 include any homemade honey?
Gorgeous photo of the sunrise. I assume the PONs didn't pose and that it was a lucky shot.

Angus said...

A very lucky shot.

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

Your sunrise photo reminds me of your blogging icon of Wilf and Digby.

I am glad you were able to get the bees safely captured - I hope that included the queen. I was recently reading an article about how 500,000 honey bees were killed in Iowa this past spring because of the senseless mischief of 2 teenagers. They were charged with 3 felonies, as they should be. A terrible loss of business and bees.

~Kim at Golden Pines~ said...

PS: Hope you feel better!

Angus said...

Pace !

Sheila said...

What good luck that you found someone to take the hive away. Not a job for the overweight...the chimney doesn't look that big.
Ragweed allergies a big problem here in the Texas hill country.

10NISNE1 said...

Love the sunrise photo! When I moved to Chicago, I thought I had a constant cold until I realized how bad allergy season is here!

Emm said...

Glad you found someone to take away the bees, and that they will be resettled elsewhere. I was afraid they'd make honey in there, and you do not want that stuff oozing through your walls.
Beautiful sunrise photo.

Angus said...

Or, heaven forbid, honey dripping down the chinmney into the fireplace.

Angus said...

Yours truly once went swimming in a downtown Lake Michigan beach and developed a rash from the toxic chemicals.

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

That video.
Made my day.

Angus said...

First time yours truly has ever had a run in with ragweed or L'Ambroisie as the French call it.

Angus said...

Somehow me thinks Latin isn't his forte.