[Ed. note: this was a post meant for last week, but asyou can guess by the dearth of posts lately, things got a little crazy around here work-wise and I fell behind in my blog posting. Still, no need to let a good post go to waste, so here it is…]

I’m tellin’ ya, you gotta stay on top of things around here before things get completely out of hand. The other day I’m skimming the pool, just vegging out from a long, stressful day at work and I see a bee kind of doing a bee thing at a juncture where the pool deck and a big ornamental rock that separates the deck from the pebble-tech siding meet. I didn’t think much of it until the bee flew a way and another bee zoomed by my head and made a bee-line (pun intended) to the very same spot. Too coincidental for this observer of nature, so I put down the skimmer and check the scene out and see that there are at least eight bees in that crack. I couldn’t tell what they were doing, or even if they were going inside the crack to some nesting area, but I decided to leave them “bee” for the time – after all, it’s not uncommon in this area for thousands of bees to set up headquarters in someone’s back yard to veg out for a day or two on their way to some final destination: we had that happen to us a few years ago.

A day goes by and the bees are still active around that spot. I’m thinking this may be a problem. Not only would I like to use the pool when I come back from my gym workouts, but I’ve got pebble-tech to scrub down before that gets out of hand.

Another day goes by, still lots of bee activity. Being an appreciator of bees in general, and the fact that these bees don’t appear to be of an aggressive nature – they appear to care less whether there are humans checking them out – I decide to give them another 24 hours. I do so in a verbal manner, telling the bees I see to inform the rest of the flock that they have 24 hours to clear out, and there will NOT be any further warnings.

Yesterday I decide to stick to my guns – there are still bees buzzing all over the place. I grab a hose and position myself on the opposite side of the pool and let ’em have it. The bees scatter, some fall in the pool, some fly away, some continue to circle around. Using the skimmer, I rescue a couple of bees helplessly flailing about in the water and carry them to safety, giving them a stern warning not to return. But what to cover it with until I can get some caulk and close that up permanently? And that’s when I saw the pile of leftover pieces of Tahitian thatch left over from the Tiki bar roof job, so I grab some sections and toss them over the area. The bees are starting to come back, so I work pretty quickly, tossing pieces on top of the other and I se it drapes over the opening really well. The bees still want to check it out, and I don’t want to have them work their way through all the little openings in the thatch, so I grab some big towels and drape them over the thatch; that they’re halfway in the water makes them heavy and keeps them in place.

It’s looks like a man-made dam on some tiny river:

The bees still tried to check things out for the next hour or so, but I think they got the message, since a day later the bee activity has stopped. This weekend I’ll caulk the area up and pool season can get back to normal.

7/6 UPDATE: Well I did caulk the area up after removing “the dam” and things have kinda settled down on the bee front. It’s taken some time for the bees to give up their quest to make a home in the rocks. Oh, you still see a couple every day checking things out, but they don’t stay long. I’d hate to think I walled in a bunch of bees and the bees flying around are responding to cries from deep within for help, but even if that were so, in the quest for a nice and relaxing pool season it’s either them or me. Chalk another crisis resolved by the weekend warrior.