Bumblebees I have known

This began several years ago now as I was in my daughter's room in our home and looked up at the ceiling only to see a big square shaped stain beginning to form on the ceiling there at least one foot by one foot in size. I asked my wife what she thought this was from. She didn't know either. So, as time went on I tried to think of what was causing this. Obviously, it wasn't from something my daughter had done but what was it from? One day I was outside and noticed bumblebees going into my attic near my daughter's room through a screened air vent that needed to be replaced because of rust. I then realized what we were dealing with  was honey from a bumblebee nest in the attic seeping down into the plasterboard of my daughter's ceiling. So, I thought what I could do to stop this problem. So, the easiest way (since the attic was too small over that part of my daughter's room for me to get to and I didn't want to be stung was to simply replace the attic vent outside my house so bumblebees couldn't get into the attic anymore. So, I decided to do that.

 I bought new vents for that side of the house which faced the ocean where ocean air which causes things to rust was hitting the house. So, climbed up a ladder and began to change the attic vent screens. The problem with this was the bumblebees were angry at what I was doing and stung me several times. I decided I didn't want to fall off the ladder being stung and decided to do the work closer to nightfall when the bumblebees wouldn't be flying in and out so much.

This worked and I succeeded in closing off the vents with new screening.  I also used a battery operated Electric Makita drill to put in  screw nails to keep the sound down. Using a hammer and nails only caused me to get stung by the bumblebees. So, using either a screwdriver or Makita drill with a phillips head bit as a screwdriver and screw nails worked best for me.  Some of you might have thought of a more elegant way of solving this problem but I was just trying to not get stung and to prevent any more damage to my daughter's room. Though the bumblebees associated with this nest who were caught inside the attic likely died, I didn't get stung anymore and I solved the problem and I hoped some had survived outside and might relocate. Later we left the nest where it was to dry up and painted my daughter's room which was the end of our journey regarding the bumblebee nest in our attic.

If you multiply what happened to us by thousands or millions this likely is part of the plight of the bumblebees and other bees around the world in regard to humans and human homes and buildings. Since we appear to be losing both bees and bumblebees worldwide this might be something to think about since we depend upon them to pollinate our food in order for anything on land to eat.