My office is not an apiary

[clevermanka]

There is a bee infestation on the third floor of Wescoe. The hive is in the outside wall, just to the south of my office (like, three feet to the south of my office). If I go outside of the building and look at the window of our conference room (the room right next to my office), I can see them swarming around an area where the flashing tore away from the concrete of the wall. It's not a comforting sight.

When I go in the conference room, I can hear the buzzing. It's loud and scary. We have dead bees in the ceiling lights, dead bees on the carpet, and at least a couple live bees buzzing around the offices every day--soon to become the dead bees.

Facilities and Operations has (as far as we can tell) done nothing except come look at the area and say "Yep. Them are some bees."

I'm not sure what's saving me from having my own office full of bees. Is it good luck? Or just a matter of time...It's making me edgy. Nine hours of edginess every day in the office is not a great situation. Every time I hear one buzzing, I have to find it to make sure it's not in my office, or entering my office through a crack in my wall or ceiling.

I don't have anything against bees (not like I do, say, wasps and hornets), but I am very tired of sharing a workspace with them and I would like them gone now.

Comments

[seymoure.livejournal.com]

Sometime when you are really bored have me tell you my stinging insect story and how it changed my life.

[fairgoldberry.livejournal.com]

Why is it that I can, in fact, hear the particularly laconic Midwestern facilities worker accent saying, "Yep. Them sure are some bees. Huh," in my head, five years after leaving the Midwest?

Down here, it'd be, "Well, it sure looks like y'vegotcha some bees, there. Whaddya know? Bees. Hey Billy Ray, come lookit them bees!"

Sorry to hear you're not getting resolution.

Much love,
Rowan

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Different accents. Same attitudes.

*sigh*

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's time to get Strong Hall involved. As in, "This is creating a hostile work environment, and I'm suspect an employment-law attourney could find a way to get this fixed..."

Seriously, call HR - they'll get it dealt with quickly.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

This is a very good idea. Thanks!

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

How deliciously nefarious! Hahaha.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

...and accurate....

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I'm usually the master of working a system. You'd think this solution would've occurred to me. Proof of just how discombobulating are these damn bees.

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they escaped from the Natural History Museum? ;)

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

The thought has been expressed by more than one person. However, the people over in Dyche Hall have already informed us that they do not want our bees, nor are they willing to assist in their removal.

None of the other local beekeepers want them, either.

Asshats.

Aren't bees supposed to be in some endangered status? You'd think someone would want them.

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

Srsly. Two years ago everybody was all WHERE HAVE ALL THE BEES GONE IT IS THE END OF AGRICULTURE!!111!!!!!!11

sorry for the long manplanation...

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

That was mostly media hype. Don't get me wrong CCD is serious, and bee populations are important, but the liberal media tends to be a bit ADHD. I'm a big fan of Hymenoptera (as you may know)and pay pay a bit of attention to them. My take (for what it's worth)is that CCD is probably a confluence of several viral disease cycles, that happen to bees anyway. This one just happens to be pretty widespread. Historically there have been worse population drops, they were just a bit narrower in scope. CCD effects only European honey bees (not indigenous to the US, tho there are quit a bit of them here) and might well be a result of a bee monoculture... There are lots of other types of bees, just as cuddly as honey bees that don't give a drop of royal jelly about CCD. If you read articles on the net about CCD be sure you note what date they were written, "cause some people have done some research since 2007-8. tThe Wikipedia is a good gloss on the situation and is fairly up to date.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to know that wanting all these bees to die already isn't environmentally irresponsible.

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with killing pest bees even if they are honey bees or not. If ALL of the pest bees died in this millisecond (.) It would have zero impact on wild bee populations. Sometimes bees make very poor housing choices.

[queza7.livejournal.com]

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I'll take Eddie over Nick any day, but I have to say that, under these particular circumstances, Nick's is funnier. =D

OTOH, that suit....mmmm, the shiny...mmmmm.

[queza7.livejournal.com]

A little shiny can make anyone's day better.

An idea for distracting yourself: put on the World Cup. Or just pretend there's a horde of people outside playing vuvuzelas.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

I had to work one summer with a wasp colony on the third floor of Strong. It was one a big one stuck to the wall of the woman's restroom, like one in this photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VariousNests.jpg

It was terrible having the wasps flying around. At least I had the option to go to the second floor to use the restroom.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

I can't even bring myself to click that URL. Thank you for not hotlinking the image.

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

I looked. Let me just say... you would NOT want to be within the same county as one of those motherfuckers.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

WTF? Why isn't this comment showing on the LJ page? Weird...LJ must be freaking out again. Yay.

Anyway, thanks for the offer, but apparently the Powers That Be have started gears turning again and they told us the bee issue should be resolved by the end of the week. Which means the end of next week. But that's cool. At least someone's working on it.

[madmatmax.livejournal.com]

We had a termite problem in the labs where they ate a water flume and some bookshelves. When we called fo they went on about clordane and how it was banned in 1983 but would kill termites for 50 years. "hopefully they will all just die when you throw everything that they ate out"

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Nice.

"When you throw out all that stuff that's holding the building together, maybe they'll go away. Because, you know, there's no building."