The great bee caper

My son Michael keeps bees. Forty thousand of them in two hives. He feeds them sugar water, takes the honey and distributes it to friends and relatives, including me. I like the honey. It's medicinal. I stay away from the bees. One got into my shirt last summer but didn't sting, to its credit. However, that still doesn't endear them to me. Seinfeld's Bee movie was amusing.

Joyce opened the walk-in closet of our master bedroom of our almost new house in the
country last week and there were four bees. Then there were eight...then 100. They looked very similar to Michael's (and Seinfeld's) drones. Don't tell Michael but we killed a few to identify them for the local Bug-B-Gone serice whom we called. (Not their real name). The first appointment produced a house inspection. Mr. Smooth Talker explained that they weren't honey bees (which they wouldn't treat ("Get a bee keeper," he advised.)"I've already got Michael," I returned. They were yellow jackets, which look a lot like honey bees but less friendly. They would get rid of them but required a one year contract for a small fortune but would protect us against all manner of creeping, crawling, other pedes about which I had no concerns. However, you do what you have to do. A man would come the next day prepared to rid my house of bees for the duration of the contract.
The next day a man arrived as promised. He seemed somewhat baffled when he entered the house.

We'd been sleeping in the basement, swatting them on the glass patio door, one at a time. Joyce, far braver than me, was shooing hundred at a time out the door, waving a towel around her head like a "meshuganah." Of course they were going around the back again into the attic (We spied their enterance hole)after spending the day sucking on my neighbor's large flowering hydrangea. She was feedimg them while we provided housing.

"Do you know why you're here?"

"No, they didn't tell me."

I showed him the dead bodies and the closet, now swarming with bees
"You'll have to get up into the attic and see if you can find the hive. Do you have a ladder?"

"No, they don't give us ladders."

I took him to the garage and showed him my ladder. He climbed to the top step, put his head in the attick opening, and climbed down the ladder.
"You don't have floor boards...only rafters. We're not allowed to go in there."

f you had a tall ladder you could possibly work from the outside."

"I'm afraid of heights."

"So am I. That's why I paid your exhorbitant fee."

Controlling my mounting anger I pointed out to him that my next call was to American Express to cancel the charge. Futhermore,I was certain that my next-door- neightbor, who had signed on when I did, would also cancel her contract.

"I'll have to call my supervisor."

"You do that."

A few minute later he reported that he now had permission to go into the attack but he didn't have the correct spray. He's be back, adequately preparewd at 8:00 AM the next day.

The next day he arrived, an hour late, and after my irate call to Bug-B-Gone.
He again climbed the ladder and peered in.

"It's very dark in there. Is there a light switch?"

"No lights. we never go up there. Do you have a flashlight?"

"They don't provide us..."

"Never mind, I have a flashlight you can use."

The story improves. He squirted the hive with a spray that shoots 15 feet.
He sprayed the entrance holes, inside and out. He left me a can of the poison which instantly attacks the bees' nervous system.

"Would you also plug up the entrance homes?"

"We're not allowed to do that."

In a day there were no more bees. Michael came and climbed my ladder to plug the holes. We've been bee-free for a week. I haven't canceled my charge. If anyone reading this is having a bee problem I will be glad to tell you the real name of the Bug-B-Gone company as an exterminator not to call.

Watch for Shrink

For those wondering where I have been, here is an update. I have been diligently editing a book which should be out this winter. "Shrink: Odyssey of a therapist"
has been two years in the making. It is a psychological novel set around a therapy situation. Morris Shwartz, a 62 year old Philadelphia psychologist brought up in the Bronx, NY treats James O'Malley, a displaced farmer from northeast, Pennsylvania. Although the patient originally presents problems in asserting himself on his job, the therapist begins to suspect more serious problems as the patient's dreams become increasingly violent. Book One ends with a court trial and a surprise climax. The story evolves from a confluennce of two personalities-the therapist and his patient. The book is heavy in psychological theory and practice,particularly dream interpretation. In Book Two,the therapist, now retired, becomes more spiritual. After a series of experiences which appear paranormal, he delves into the literature about altered states of consciousness. The climax, in a psychioatric hospital, when Morris appears delusional, raises questions about the boundaries between normal and abnormal, delusions and deality, fantasy and truth.

Later enties here may deal with the hazzards and frustrations of publishing a non-professional book.