The Bee Busters

As a youth I entered into the toughest street gang in the suburbs of west gomer OH. The Bee Busters. We were one hardcore bunch. Picture the southpark gang, except all members were Eric Cartman, just not fat (teej was butters). Our enemies were the bees that freguented the west central OH countyside, especially in the neighbors apple grove. Our weapon of choice, wiffle ball bats. The alpha male, or whoever had first dibs, got the big womper, a bad-assed plastic bat that resembled captain cavemans club. No matter what tool of death we yielded, we kicked some bee ass. If word spread of a bee stinging, the bee busters would hop on their BMX’s and roll out. Some times we’d smash bees that had landed on an apple, a branch, or another members head, most times we’d swing wildly into the air. The best was when you could pick up a rotting apple with a bee already on it, throw it at another kid, causing a bruise, and the bee to sting him. Most times it just stung our fingers. The estimated death toll of bees was in the quatrillions. I believe this is why the modern “super bee” has risen to power. It was survival of the fittest, and whichever bee could escape our rath, has now bread a swarm of O.G. Bees. The last two days, I had to revert to the acts of my gangland youth. Thursday afternoon, while rescuing the patio furniture from their winter prison, I noticed a swarm of hornets/wasps in the immediate area of my grill. This was a bad move for the little bastards. The bee busters are back, in the form of me, a hose, and a 3-wood. You know when one of your neighbors is outside doing something really stupid, and you can’t look away? Well that was me. Your welcome neighbors. After royally pissing off the wasps/hornets, and getting stung for the first time in quite a while, I called it a night, and regrouped. The backyard was off-limits to everyone, as dozens of stinging bastards were on the lookout for anything to sting. After some careful game planning and a few beers, I turned to an ally not available to the original bee busters. The Lowes Insect killing isle. Since I know very little about which of the dozens of aerosol poisons needed for this task. I did what anyone in my situation would do, and went with the one that was 2-for-1. Shock and awe. Plus the label was the coolest. Here’s where the story goes from retarded, to a lesson for anyone who finds themself in my situation. First, when a lable says it sprays up to 30 feet, this means eight feet. So when you have literally stirred up a hornets nest, your estimated safe distance is pretty well fucked. When it says it kills on contact, this means it was tested on weak-assed labratory hornets, not the backyard killers I’ve been dealing with. So what the lable should say instead of ’kills on contact’ should say, ‘this will really piss off a hornet if you spray him with it, he’ll have just enough energy to flag you down and sting your ass, especially since you’ll only be five feet away because this product sprays like a can of shaving cream’. So I reverted to the hose, this bought me enough time to get out the gate, and back into the garage where more beer and game planning transpired. Since I used up both full cans with little success it was back to Lowes. This time I bought two separate brands, with much lower expectations. After another failed attempt, I decided to actually read the directions. I guess your supposed to wait until ‘dusk’ when the hornets settle down, and spray them, and the nest all at once. A little to calculated for my tastes, but I gave it a shot. The Bee Busters themselves could not have done better. Theres dead hornets all over the place, and a lot of poisonous foam as well, but who cares. As of now, the yard is safe. A few rogue hornets escaped my wrath, but Ortho foaming wasp and hornet spray did the trick. I have enough left over to finish off the straglers in the morning. Wooohooo. So I got stung a few times, but it happens. I’ll be able to grill out tomorow just in time to watch Joe Calzaghe pound Bernard Hopkins face in tomorow night on HBO. I’ll be flying the welsh flag high, I just might add a Bee Busters logo in the corner.