I’m still typing slowly with the broken finger but hey, at least I am typing.

We had a bit of an adventure in my front yard yesterday – our beautiful, ancient California Pepper Tree split, perhaps from the heat, and half of it fell over in the front yard and into my neighbor’s yard. Miraculously it missed our house, his house, our car in front and the power lines. That was the good news. The bad news was that it exposed a giant nest of honey bees. We’ve known the bees were there. We love having them in our tree and seeing them flit around the garden. The property manager was concerned about someone getting hurt (valid concern) and the tree guy was sent out to “dispose of the bees” so he could then “dispose of the tree”. The WHOLE tree.

I was weeping giant nature girl tears about then, dead bees, dead tree – bad, bad, bad.

I got on the phone and found a beekeeper who was willing to come out and take the bees away. Alas, the property manager said the tree guy was on his way to kill the bees. I met the tree guy out front. His weapon? A can of bug spray. That’s it. Thousands of bees were circling the nest and he was going to step in there in his jeans and t-shirt and shoot off a can of bug spray??? I don’t think so.

He tells me, “If I spray them with this it won’t kill them all and those that are left are going to be really ticked off bees.”

No kidding? I told him about the beekeeper and he was all over that idea.So hopefully while I’ve been at work they have been safely removing the bees. The beekeeper told me to leave some jars for honey if there was any left. Then the property manager said that they would have an arborist come out and look at the tree and see if there was anything that could be saved and I cheered! I may not have bees but maybe I will still have part of my tree. Fingers crossed.

My neighbor is taking pictures of the bee removal for me. And to tie this to writing, I’m sure there’s a nature article in this somewhere.

Oh pictures of the trees and the bees are here .