The Pestering Dead

I've come to the conclusion that carpenter bees are members of the zombie community. 

Yes, I am fully aware that sounds crazy and ridiculous, but hear me out. 

Last summer, there were so many carpenter bees buzzing around and digging into the top of our balcony. Aubrey loves being outside, but I wouldn't let her with all the mean bees. 

The pest control our apartment maintenance had come did absolutely NOTHING to help. A friend on Facebook gave me the advice to swat the bees myself with a racket. So I got out Jared's tennis racket (I didn't want to get bee guts all over MY racket) and started hitting away. 

It worked for a little bit. I got most of the males and some of the females. But I couldn't get all of them. It turned cold, they went away, I thought we were done. 

The long winter kept the bees away longer. I didn't see any until a couple weeks ago. 

And then the bees returned! I killed 3 in a week. Feeling pretty good about myself, I didn't keep up my vigilance in keeping an eye out. 

Another bee started burrowing in the balcony! Yesterday, Jared witnessed me killing it with my awesome skill now. I hit it at just the right angle so I smacked it onto the ground and then squished it (with his racket!). 

Once again, feeling confident, I let Aubrey play outside this morning. Even had the door wide open. As far as I knew, I had killed all the bees!

But I just saw ANOTHER ONE! I'm convinced it is the same several bees coming back. Including the bees from last summer I've killed about 10 bees. Either I have the only apartment being pestered by carpenter bees, or they keep coming "back to life."

I saw parts of an episode of Walking Dead before I got grossed up and queasy. From what I understood from Jared talking about the show, there are zombies that want to eat the live people. So the live people run away until they find a safe spot. And then they defended their safe spot from the zombies for a while. 

I've done my running. Every time a bee came by, I would retreat back inside the home and close (and lock) the door. But I've decided to defend my home! 

This zom-bee (get it? zombie + bee = zom-bee) has finally met its match! It will be destroyed and never have the option to pester me again!

Whenever Aubrey sees me by the door, she wants to go outside. Not wanting to risk her safety (the bees are fast and I sometimes have wild swings), I put on a movie to distract her. 

While she watched Veggie Tales, I waited by the door for the zom-bee to take a flying break. Every few minutes it would come out of the hole, buzz around and then go into another hole. Sometimes I would rush out and try to get it, but it quickly went into the hole. Sneaky zom-bee. 

But finally, my opportunity came! I rushed out there, swatted the zom-bee with that perfect angle to smack it into the concrete floor, and I squished it. But this time, I took an extra precaution. Since swatting, smacking and squishing doesn't do the trick, I decided to add another step. Splitting. 

Now, if I see another bee and it's in 2 parts, I know it's the zom-bee!

Wish I had done this last year. I've finally gotten rid of the bees and zom-bees just in time for us to move into our new house in a couple weeks. BUT, if this problem happens again, I know just what to do!





...I'm not crazy....