First a bear, now MIGRATING BEES!

Well, if you remember we had a black bear lurking in the neighborhood a month or so ago. The ending of that story is...he was shot by a hunter. The bear lost fear of humans and broke into a basement and also some garbage cans very close to our house. I am sad he could not be relocated, but happy we don't have to worry about a bold bear lurking around!

SO, let's add 24,000 MIGRATING BEES!!! Our next door neighbor Todd came over and he told me to look over at his front yard and from the ground up to tops of the trees was this MASSIVE cloud of bees!! I HATE bees and still have never been stung and pretty much slammed the door in Todd's face! haha. Turns out, they came from the orchards that are not far behind our houses. The queen left and they started migrating for a new place to move their hive. Well, Maria's mom was out in the backyard with 4 yr old Gabe and all of the sudden the swarm was ALL around her. Thankfully Gabe was across the yard and she told him to get inside "NOW" and he did. She opted to stand VERY still until they SLOWLY passed her. SCARY!!! Then, we saw them out front and they slowly decided to cling to one of the trees in our cul-de-sac.

Thankfully they are honey bees and even with my rediculous fear of bees, they really aren't so bad. Not exactly fun to see 24, 000 swarming around you, but they really don't care about you. So, I actually stood at the bottom of the tree and snapped some photos. But, it's hard to see them as they are clustered around the trunk and with the thick leaves and branches you can't really get a feel of HOW MANY there are in that tree! I kept snapping as the wind blew the branches around and this is as good as I could get. Also, there were still hundreds swarming the tree as well-very close to me!!

A side note. On Friday while playing in the back yard pool, Lacy was taking a break and sitting on her towel. I was just coming back outside and I see her reaching for a decent sized bug. Just as she picked it up, I told her "Lacy's let's put that down until Mommy can see what it is" And I walk over right as she shudders and throws it down.....IT WAS A BEE!!! How the child did not get stung, I HAVE NO IDEA! When I told her that was a bee, then she freaked out, knowing that bee's can hurt you...oh, it was quite comical! Then...the swarm of bees the next day!

After we were done looking at the icky bees, we stopped over and played in Todd and Maria's backyard and Lacy had fun with Grandpa Joe on the hammock:)
(I plan on posting the baby update after we hit the pool this afternoon:)