Posted on 05/02/2024 12:52:24 AM PDT by billorites
The ceremonial first pitch is an honor usually bestowed upon a certain class of celebrity. But when the Arizona Diamondbacks were set to start their game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday, after a lengthy delay, they didn’t trot out a famous musician or a beloved retired player to lob the ball in the direction of home plate.
Instead, the man standing on the mound was dressed in the full ballooning arms and flapping headgear of a beekeeping suit. That’s because Matt Hilton, a Blue Sky Pest Control manager in Phoenix, was the only reason baseball could be played at Chase Field that night at all.
The trouble began shortly before the contest’s scheduled start time of 6:40 p.m., when a swarm of bees buzzed in a mass at the top edge of the protective netting behind home plate. It was an insect infestation straight out of the infamous playoff game in Cleveland in 2007, when a horde of Lake Erie midges attacked New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain.
Only this one had the potential to be much more painful.
About five minutes before the umpires were set to shout, “Play ball!,” Mike Rock, the Diamondbacks’ vice president of ballpark operations, received a phone call from Kat McDonald, the senior manager of event services. She informed him that the stadium had suddenly become an apiary.
When Rock asked how many bees had landed up there, McDonald responded, “Hundreds—no wait, thousands!” That’s when he knew he had a problem on his hands. The Diamondbacks stalled the game, surveyed their options and put in a call to Blue Sky, their corporate partner for pest control.
“I did make a call to a competitor, just to see, ‘Are you close by?’” Rock said.
But it was Hilton—who was watching...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Get a garbage can, throw a shot of gas in it, place garbage can over bee nest, no more bees.
Only takes a few minutes.
This is not new. The last time it happened was in 2019 when it delayed a reds/giants game for about 20 minutes and the bees left when they found a suitable nesting location outside the park.
When the pest guy vacumned up the bees this time he will probably either sell them or give them to a bee keeper and they will be used for honey production. Luckily, unless provoked, swarming bees are not normally agressive and don’t sting very often. If you watched the capture, there were very few of the bees even concerned about the pest guy. If this had been at a hive, and he hadn’t set up smoke, he would have been covered.
wy69
IIRC, sex ratio can vary quite a bit depending on species and local flora...
In any case, bees are bros no matter the sex, eh?
Cuz wasps and hornets are...the other.
No matter the sex.
Here’s an entomologist having a kitten...
https://bugeric.blogspot.com/2016/03/bee-vs-wasp-memes-perpetuate-ignorance.html
(chortle)
LA played their B-game and lost.
Bees are about the only critter I worry about when I'm out hunting or hiking in Arizona, much more than rattlesnakes. I've heard that Africanized bees will chase a person for up to a mile, and there's no way I could run a mile in the desert these days. If I notice more bees around than usual, or if I hear the sound of a swarm, I leave the area cautiously and quietly.
A local beekeeper once told me that Africanized bees have a warning behavior of bumping into intruders before attacking, so if you have bees flying into you and bouncing off, get out of there. Don't swat them, because a dying bee will release pheromones that will trigger an attack by the rest of the bees.
Heh, NOW I know!
Free bees!
But I thought the people of Calgary were left all of that money so they could move to someplace decent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfMcxmOBmpk
Understand that I'm not saying you can hold a baseball game around them, and that it wasn't absolutely necessary to remove/relocate them -- it was -- I'm just pointing out that a honeybee swarm is in no way comparable to a swarm of, say, wasps or hornets which is a true danger. I'm just pointing out the distinction that I didn't see covered in the article (maybe I missed it as I'm still on my first cup out here this early morning).
Yep, covering that is not as helpful to visits and clicks.
For more bee humor...
Shawn the Sheep in Buzz Off Bees
Don't do that with honeybees though. They are mostly harmless and incredibly useful critters. Wasps, on the other hand are assholes with wings.
I think your reply was meant for glennaro’s #30.
We seem to get lots of bees in Arizona.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
They had some good stuff back in the day!
Some years ago, a swarm took up (temporary?) residence between the chimney and behind the interior wall of my house in SoCal. The bees were dropping down behind the baseboard and crawling out into the living room(!) A local bee removal expert and beekeeper was Johnny on the spot and took care of the problem. He showed up in shorts, T-shirt, & flip flops, and didn’t mind that he got stung a few times. An encyclopedia of bee knowledge, he said the kind that I had were a Russian variety and not Africanized, a relief.
NOT IN A MILLION YEARS
We had a nest of honeybees under our shed some years back. They were pretty docile; I used to mow and weed-eat around there with no problems. Then one day my wife was out in the yard, not even near the shed, and got stung six times before she could get indoors. I got a canister of foam insecticide and did away with those bees. I suspect that an Africanized swarm took over the site at some point.
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