Save the Bees!

Whazzup?
You tell me, you smart newspaper-reading people (see last post).
The bees have been in my yard since May, and there have been four people stung in all of those (Icandomath, Icandomath) four months: me, my mom, my dad, and a neighbor's dog who tried to eat a bee. Tell me, if these little ladies are soooo dangerous, wouldn't even dogs know not to eat them? Huh? HUH? HUH??? HUH?!? YOU TALKIN' TO ME?!?

If you didn't ignore that, slap yourself on the wrist, give me ten push-ups, slam a dunce cap on your head, and sit in the corner for five minutes. Then keep reading.
In other words, the committee has voted on a ban, had it voted down, voted on a ban again (can they do that?), and is now trying to regulate it to oblivion by requiring 25-foot set-back distances. PLEASE go to www.evanstonnow.com and vote on the bee bzz-ness. No, don't go now, finish reading first, fool... EYES FRONTWAYS, CADET!!!
Do I have to tell you?
Well, I'm not sure how to wrap this up, so--
Look! I'm over there! (see arrow at top)

*poof*

Sorry!

Ow! Help! No, stop! Okay, okay, I'll write! Just leave me here to die!

It's amazing just how much pain a deadline can cause if you're trying to think about what the heck you're going to write the next time your hyper level drops a bit while navigating school corridors full of napping cats, doorposts, and possibly some cruel nerve gas that makes you think you're at school when it's the 28th of June. Especially those doorposts. They neither need nor really want company and will react violently. But back to the bees. They are snugly holed up in their hive while we put up with rain coming sideways in through our screens. And as you would know if you read the papers, you ignorant moronic mmmmmmmfffffffff! Okay, don't worry, I always restrain myself when I get a head full of steam. Anyway, since you read this, I'm sure you know (or at least knew) that there was a council meeting on Monday. Now that was interesting. A key opponent of bees and I daresay nature in general (high-and-mighty SUV driver!) had noticed that the hive had grown, and pointed this out at the meeting. "Oh, I saw that the hive seems to have grown, it looks as if there might be more bees in it." Yeah... Can someone explain to this lunatic that pine lumber coated with specially formulated paint is different from bees? I mean, we put the second hive body on on Sunday (try learning about that from the papers) and that is the equivalent of adding a few rooms to a house. Rooms, not people. Big difference there. Rooms don't steal your biscotti. The same person also pointed out that the cover was on crookedly. That is the equivalent of adding another window to a house, to continue the analogy; it lets in air and in a pinch can serve as an entrance. Finally, that same person (my, how observant this person is) let us know that having our front gate open is just inviting someone to come up and kick the hive. To quote a series of funny Guinness ads, Brilliant! If you ask me, anyone stupid enough to sneak into someone else's yard and kick an obviously active beehive deserves to get stung. Kicking a beehive is like taunting a Yorkshire Terrier; you'll live, but boy will it hurt. The hive, incidentally, has been in my backyard for about a month now, and the cherry tree down the block has never looked better.

That's all the sur-insanity-realism for now,

Jezaib

Queen is here!

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you guys about Da Beez. Things have been a little hectic what with school, and neighbors, and finals, and research papers, and finals, and illnesses, and finals, and finals! A-yup, finals are pretty intimidating, and they pop up kinda unexpectedly. In fact, there might be a final hovering behind you right NOW!
I didn't say anything.
Well, the bees are installed, and have been for over a week. Wednesday we let the queen out of her cage into the hive, so I had to endure countless dumb jokes about her being seen in a tiara. The cork that was keeping the queen in her cage was really something though; the bees had ripped these great big chunks out of it from the outside. And of course I had to use the smoker in order to open up the hive, so I smelled funny for the rest of the day. How funny? I was burning cotton husks, but a similar effect in terms of personal atmosphere could be obtained by burning a pair of used sweat socks and rubbing the ashes into your hair. That funny.
I find it necessary to remind people that if they are looking for a site that is coherent, completely sane, and grammatically correct, they ain't not be comin' here. So don't criticize me for rambling or insanity, but feel free to burn me (not literally) about bad grammar unaccompanied by a dumb joke. Or use of the word "spork".
You guessed it! I've been rambling again. But, better to ramble than to spaz out completely.
Gaah! I'm over my rambling quota!
The bees are fine, just to get back on topic, but I'm not saying where they are unless you submit me a tax form from year 2007 with the correct password typed in ink with a #2 lead pencil, to quote Bill Bryson.
Ramble-meter is off the charts.

Best, from Jezaib.

Bees Are Here!

Here we go again, and this time there's an actual 3-pound package of bees sitting next to me, buzzing loudly. The buzzing really makes you feel sleepy; it's like a noisy air conditioner... y67htgb (Please excuse this word; I dozed off and my head hit the keyboard.) Hey, I told you it makes you sleepy!
The whole business of the bees is attracting quite a bit of media attention, by the way. This is odd because it does not involve celebrities, crime, UFOs, or other juicy tabloid topics. Than again, this is Evanston. The news people don't always get things right, though. The Daily Northwestern, for example, got my mom's last name right in the article and wrong in the caption. And the initial Northwestern News cable coverage took an interesting angle. "More and more people have been turning to honey made by (pause) b- b- bees instead of sugar." Honey made by bees as opposed to what? We have a term for that. We call it "mixed(-up) media".
bv65ty7
There I go again! The bees are scurrying around waving their wings like kindergarteners during a fire drill, and they are noisy about it. They get even louder when there's a lot of light or one of the cats tries to mash his face up against the screen and ogle them. The cats just can't resist. I'm getting sleepy now, so it's time to stop.

Hasta luego, from Jezai6tyg5

*snore*

Crunch time

4/30/06 and tomorrow night is a meeting to decide whether a beekeeping ordinance will be imposed. I'd like to answer a few questions that have come up. Exhibit A: "If bees are safe, why do beekeepers wear those protective veils?" This is a stupid question, in my opinion, and only deserves a stupid answer. If someone ripped the walls of your house out of the ground and peered closely at you, wouldn't you be mad??? Bees are like that too. (Previous sentence in a Kindergarten Lady voice.) The main reason that a bee might sting is that it feels that the hive is being threatened. When the beekeeper opens a hive...hey presto! It could be perceived as a threat! And since it presumably hurts to be stung in the face, beekeepers wear veils. Veils are like fire extinguishers; you hope to never need them, but you have them just in case. And on that note, I'm off to stock up on pressurized CO2 canisters.

Yours truly,

Jezaib.

Hey everyone, update. The online petition is at http://www.petitiononline.com/gr8tbees/petition.html. We've got upwards of 70 signatures so far. Go there if you can.

First encounter, 4/14/06.

You may know me as Jezaib for now. I am just a freshman at Evanston Township High School who wants to keep bees. I will get them sometime next week if all goes well. My next door neighbors, however, are dead-set against them. (Ignorant of bees other than that they can sting, of course.) Since good ol' Evanston has no laws whatsoever concerning bees or beekeeping, they have done their best to sic the city on us. They wish. A meeting has been scheduled for Monday, May 1st at 7 PM in case you want to attend. It's at the Evanston Civic Center, which is on Ridge north of Simpson, in case you want to know where to attend. The meeting is to discuss whether or not Evanston will make any laws concerning beekeeping. So you know why to attend. Ba-dum-bum. (I am affiliated with an online petition called gr8tbees at onlinepetition.com--please visit it!) Bees are, by the way, necessary for the fruition of our many backyard gardens.

Bees are estimated to directly or indirectly produce over a third of the food we eat.

Please support us all in this bee issue. Signing off, more news to follow as events warrant.