Memorial Day Marked By Battle of the Bees

THE BACKYARD IS STARTING TO TAKE SHAPE!

The Sweetwoods spent Memorial Day building their new patio gazebo. The reviews on this metal and canvas beauty warned that this was a two-person, two-hour project.

And that would have been accurate except: Bees.

Not just any bees, mind you. Carpenter bees.


FROM WIKIPEDIA

Ever heard of carpenter bees? Neither had we. Until, as we were organizing the parts for the gazebo construction, a giant bee bumbled its way over the patio and went through a small, heretofore unknown hole in the door that leads to the garage!

Carpenter bees are often mistaken for bumble bees or yellow jackets. The key difference, explained the guy at Home Depot where we had fled both for safety and for advice, was that carpenter bees are harder to kill.

Awesome.


ANOTHER WIKIPEDIA IMAGE

He sold us a bottle of industrial-strength bug destroyer which was so powerful, you only mix one tablespoon per gallon of water. He also sold us one of those pump sprayers that also had to be put together, not that the instructions were any help. To get an idea of how much the Chinese truly hate us, build something from their instructions.

I decided to use a lot more that the recommended tablespoon of bee killer and then sprayed down the door and even sprayed two suspicious holes near the garage roof. It should be noted that this bee invasion could have gone on unnoticed forever as this door is never used and is blocked by the tractor mower on the inside of the garage and the grill-that-can't-be-used-because-a-part-fell-off-during-one-of-the-moves on the outside.

We then set about our original task: Building a gazebo. This set of Chinese instructions, frankly, was quite good and the gazebo – a killer Target deal – was soon under construction. However, we barely had the first set of screws in when a couple of the bees returned.

I sprayed them directly. One fell to the ground and got stomped for his trespassing. And then the pattern was set: Attach some screws; scan for incoming bees; Mark would flee off of the top of the ladder screaming like a girl; grab the sprayer; kill bees.

I hate bees, especially large bees that can easily bore through wood. Gnawing an entire arm off would be easy for these satan spawns...

Soon, despite much screaming, the gazebo was done.


THE GAZEBO AND ITS AWESOMENESS...

We added the outdoor bar set we bought way back in Crystal Lake and a couple of chairs so we can gaze out over the Back 40...

Note the bricks stacked on the gazebo side panels. This model had cool little built-in ledges, probably for flowers or some other decor. Our second trip to the hardware store of the day yielded a dozen pavers, my ingenious idea for making sure the gazebo was not going anywhere anytime soon...


AWESOME VIEW...

We have been slowly but surely transforming the backyard. We took out nine trees and added the patio shortly after moving in. Mary landscaped around the patio and the side of the garage last year and added new plants. We resealed the deck last summer, too. This spring, I used the Preen with plant food additive around the entire perimeter of the house (I usually just use the plain Preen to ward off weeds). One of the unintended consequences was that some dormant rose bushes exploded back into life for the first time since we moved here in 2008.


WE HAVE ROSES!

It was a busy day. But we triumphed over bees and the gazebo sure looks great. We celebrated with a couple of frosty pints.

More later,

Mark