To any regular readers: I've been home since Tuesday with flu-like symptoms, though my doctor suspects it may be a bacterial infection.
Before the flu symptoms began, I was attacked by a bee while working in the garden on Sunday and stung on the ear. I now realize that once a bee starts bothering you for more than a few seconds, it's better to get inside where the bees can't get to you. Once the bee is buzzing frantically all over you, it's probably inevitable that you are going to get stung.
Did you know, after being stung by a bee, you're NOT supposed to pull out the stinger with tweezers, as this can cause more venom to enter you body? Unfortunately, I asked my wife to pull out the stinger before I consulted the medical websites.
Also, bees don't like sweaty people. Although I think it defeats the purpose if you need to take a shower before going outside to work in the garden.
I'll be posting again after I get back to work and things settle down.
UPDATE (2006/05/18): I returned to work on Tuesday, though I'm still not at one hundred percent.
A contractor started working on our basement today, which has some water damage. When they removed an upstairs gutter, "about a million bees" came out, "and they weren't very happy," according to the construction supervisor. Now an exterminator has to come and destroy the bee colony before the exterior work can continue.
The work should be done on Saturday. The exterminator said he would apply some gas that is toxic to bees in the late evening, when most of the bees should be in the colony, and then add some chemicals to kill any bees that come back in the next couple of days.
He said to make sure that the construction crew removes the honeycombs, which can start to rot in the warm air, and can also attract rats.
I hope to be able to avoid any more problems with bee attacks through the summer.
UPDATE 2 (2006/05/24): The bee exterminator spent at least 45 minutes on Saturday evening, first gassing the bee nest, and then spreading toxic powder to kill any stragglers who were not there at the time. He told us that bees may continue to fly around the nest on Sunday and Monday, but by Tuesday, the bees should all be gone. He told us to wear shoes outside for the next two weeks, as we could still be stung by dead bees in the area.
He also said the bees' honeycomb was very large, about 5 feet by 2 feet, in the area underneath the balcony. He said we should have the construction crew remove the honeycomb, or, at the very least, seal up the hole so that other bees would not come and take over the nest.
Sure enough, all the bees were gone by Tuesday morning. As I was removing a tarp which protected the exposed area of the house, I found dozens and dozens of dead bees below the nest and in the tarp. I spoke to the construction supervisor by telephone during the day, and he said they had gone ahead and removed the honeycomb. But when I got home in the evening, I found one or two dozen bees flying around the nest area, and one bee trapped in the basement storage area.
The most likely explanation? 1) The queen bee had survived along with some worker bees, and they had managed to set up operations again. 2) The construction crew had not removed all of the honeycomb, and what had remained was attracting new bees. 3) Some combination of #2 and #3.
The bee exterminator will be returning this evening.
UPDATE 3 (July 2006):
A photo of a small part of the honeycomb that a different contractor took out of the ceiling:
On Sunday, our family went to downtown Los Angeles for Fiesta Broadway, a huge festival of music and corporate promotion festival running about ten blocks down Broadway Avenue.
It is typically held the Sunday before Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday which has carried over to the United States among the Mexican immigrant population, as well as another excuse for college students to get drunk.
This was our first time to the festival, as I had earlier had the impression that it was meant for Latino families. But with a few hours to spend together on Sunday, and reports of huge crowds and logistical difficulties at the Festival of Books at UCLA, we decided to head to downtown.
I read in the newspaper today that the crowds were much lighter than usual this year. If that is true, I don't want to imagine a typical event, because the crowds were hard enough to navigate with two strollers holding a baby and a toddler.
Mainly, we went about two-thirds of the route, picking up freebies (did I mention my wife and I are cheap?), signing up for giveaways, and checking out the sights.
Some of the bigger corporate presences we saw were for T Mobile, McDonald's, Bank of America, AT&T, Coca Cola, and Pepsi. Corporate America definitely recognizes the buying power of Latinos in this country.
My earlier impression was correct, in that probably ninety-five percent of the crowd appeared to be Latino. There were two large music stages, set up at either end of Broadway, but we didn't have much interest in the music.
This was the same street where a massive pro-immigration reform demonstration was held at noon today in downtown Los Angeles. According to news reports, police estimated a crowd of 250,000 at the rally today, the first of two in Los Angeles on what they called A Day Without Immigrants. Though most of the stores were open for business during the festival, news reports said practically every store was closed today.
Yesterday, I went on my semi-regular walk around downtown during my lunch hour, and I was really impressed by the purple flowers of the jacaranda trees on Hope Street near Bunker Hill.
The pictures probably would have turned out better if today had not been so overcast, but I managed to take some pictures without the grey sky as a background for the purple flowers.
