My Guard Bee

I usually don't get an extra hour to hang out, but I did the other day. 

Around 4 pm I took the stack of magazines that have come my way as castoffs from various relatives -- mostly food magazines --  sat down on the lounge chair in my backyard patio and began turning pages. Usually quickly, sometimes stopping, ripping out a good-looking recipe here and there.

Now I've sat in that lounge chair maybe three times in the year that I have it. 

Bees like this backyard. Flowers pop out in a couple of months and the population of bees creates a soundtrack like a steadily passing train. But now, in April, I saw a solitary bee buzzing around. 

I saw him. Then kept reading. 

I saw him chase off a wasp until the wasp left the confines of the fence. Then the bee came back. That's when I noticed he was pacing...in the air. From one end of the patio to the other. Then back again. Buzzing left. Buzzing right. Repeatedly. Staying. 

Once in a while he'd stop mid-flight and just flap his wings standing still in the air. A couple of times he buzzed near me like he wanted to see if he recognized me. Then he'd start doing his -- literally -- bee-line flight from one end to other. In a nice straight line.

?????

I don't know. Who knows what's in the mind of bees.

Next day I come out thru the patio to get to the car. There he is again. Doing the same thing. Back and forth. Chasing away flying bugs that happen to pass through. Even a high flying bird got his attention and he flew up high above the patio to "chase" that one away. Then back to the flight-pacing.

Next day, he's back again. In fact, he's out there right now. Flying from one end to the other. When I come home and open the gate, there he is flying. I say hi and he flies by.

I had to looked this up. 

Lo and behold, there is such a thing as Bee Patrol.

Here's what Colorado State University Etymology department had to say on the web (for more see link under "links" list).

(BTW, Bumble bees are from the bombus species -- great word, no??)

Male bumble bees go on "patrol flights" to scent-mark their territory. They might scent-mark twigs, leaves, tree trunks. They might do this for a few hours and then continue flying their flight routes, occasionally "pausing on the wing."

That's just what he did! I didn't see him doing the scent-marking -- but who knows what that looks like. AND who knows, too, what that scent is? I'd love to smell it. Might be a wonderful perfume. Or just that bee's individual scent like us people have. (we people?) (we, the people?)

Their flight height also tells the science guys something. They think it distinguishes what type of bumble bee they are. My patrol bee flies at about 4 feet from the ground...kinda around my chin level or a bit higher (i'm 5' 1.5").

Another thing: some species scent-mark the edges of leaves, some the whole thing, or every leaf! Some do it real slow, some really fast. And the stuff they secret for the scent-marking is called pheromone. Ah, another new thing. I'l look it up: (hang on...)

Okay. Got it. It's a chemical or hormone that elicits a response in another member of the species...there are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, and sex pheromones.

Okay, there's more...supposedly we have them, too. Just for the sexy stuff. One study apparently showed that a woman's body naturally adjusts her menstrual cycle when exposed to the smell of a male underarm. The smell of sweat is where the pheromone is and it's been called an aphrodisiac.  

This bee is really up to something.

So there you have it.

Why do I suddenly have a Guard Bee? 

Probably because birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. 

Well, it is spring. 

Just looked out the window. He's there. And he's awfully cute.

Bird Heaven

I decided the bird should die in the wall.

Yes, me. I made that decision. He may already be dead since I haven't heard him thrashing about for at least a couple of hours. And the chimney men were here vacuuming the chimney and making their own racket and he didn't even stir.

You see, I thought the bird had gotten into the chimney. That's how it sounded. It sounded like a winged being with little peeps crashing around the flue right near its opening at the fireplace. It started yesterday morning, Easter Sunday, right before my aunt, uncle, mom, sister, cousin and her husband were coming over for Easter lunch.

I looked online. To get a bird out of your fireplace chimney you're supposed to put seed in the fireplace and a flashlight. Open the flue while still having your glass doors, or grating closed. Once the bird comes down use a pillow case to capture. Wear long sleeves and gloves. Then let him free outdoors.

I was going to ask my cousin Angela's husband, Mark, if he had any experience with this, or for his opinion at least. But Mark just got back from the Masters Tournament in Augusta and the last of tournament was on the TV and we all got involved with that. And the bird was quiet all through lunch. And I completely forgot to ask.

After they left, the bird starting thrashing about again. I was going to try the flashlight-pillowcase routine, but the bird sounded like he was a big one. And I figured maybe a chimney guy could not only get the bird out but fix the top of the chimney so no more birds get in.

I just called one this morning. 

He asked me on the phone:

"Is it in your chimney or in the wall?"

"The wall? Why would it be in the wall? It's in the chimney -- I can hear him right near the flue opening."

When he got here, as he's talking to me about the situation, his sidekick starts bringing in drop cloths and chimney sweeping equipment. He tells him: "We're looking for a bird, didn't I tell you that?" But the sidekick keeps bringing in the cleaning equipment.

The chimney guy kneels down in front of the fireplace and listens. Then knocks on the metal vent around it...no noise.

He opens the flue and closes the glass doors quickly.

Nothing.

Then he shines a flashlight up the flue.

"I don't see him. He's in your wall."

"What?"

"Come here I'll show you."

We go outside and the sidekick starts cleaning the chimney.

"He's cleaning the chimney?"

"Yeah, you need to have your chimney cleaned."

So, he explained, the bird gets in through the top of the chimney but there's an opening at the side of the central flue. An open area behind the outside wall of the chimney. This is where, he tells me, birds get in.

"I've seen situations where there are 30, 40 birds in there behind the wall. Now we can pull off your aluminum siding and get in there. I can't say I can match this paint, and I don't know how much of this siding we'd have to take off. We're talking about 2-3 hundred dollars."

Already he told me the tab for cleaning the chimney and fixing the cap on the chimney so birds don't get in anymore = $149.

"Or. Leave him in there. Bird carcasses are small. They don't smell when they die. All that's left is a tiny skeleton and some feathers."

The sun broke out through the clouds at this point. Beaming on me, sending heat right to my forehead which was in turmoil. Bird in wall. Bird in wall. Bird in wall. Take apart house to get bird in wall. I thought of the roadkill squirrel I drove by yesterday. Right in the middle of the road, on its back, its white underbelly bright, shiny red blood around its mouth. I drove on, but didn't drive over him.

"I don't know," I say.

"Well, we can take this apart. If I started from the top -- this is a high chimney -- we'd have to maybe take out the partitions that are in there every few feet. But I can find him if you want. I've done it. I can find him and may even get him out alive. People in Brentwood and Franklin, they've got money to spend, they tell me 'Get him out!' Me, I live beneath my means."

I start thinking about my means. Not living beneath. Living probably "at"  my means. He sees my apprehension.

"Ma'am, most people just leave the bird in there."

I nodded, saying the words but not really behind them: "Hmmm-mmm. Okay."

As they got out the long ladder to get to the top so they can fix the cap, I felt a small panic brewing in my belly. I called Duane. He's at work. I'm hoping he's not too busy. I needed to know if this was the right decision. I needed reassurance or at least a "there, there." 

He was steady, calm, accepted the decision as normal. He didn't say: "And you're leaving the bird in there to die?!?!" Thank god for that. He said (among other things) to ask how often you're supposed to the clean the chimney. Maintenance questions. Maintenance thoughts. Not questions of soul-searching. I felt better. My nerves sat down. I told myself it's one of those crossings between the natural world and the human constructs that get in the middle of it.  

But under Duane's calm matter-of-fact demeanor, he knew exactly what my conflict was...."Write about it for your blog."

As the chimney man leaves he notices my Guinness poster on the wall. A bright toucan with a glass of Guinness on its beak.

"You like Guinness?"

"Not exactly. I love toucans. I'm a bird lover."

He nods his head. He knows there's no happy answer.

"Yep. What you got in your wall is a starling. It'll die of dehydration probably. You know, starlings are considered pests. They get into everything. Like kudzu."

The starling in the wall hasn't thrashed since. Maybe it will later. Or tonight. Or maybe it's already dead. Trapped in the human world of wall. Its own personal twilight zone.

My house is creating a fossil. Something a paleontologist might find in a thousand years. After the chimney came down. And its wall. But the feather embedded in aluminum won't tell this story.