Wild African (Killer?) Bees

We are so influenced by the things we read and hear! I was working on the car a couple of days ago (my new job it seems!) as I fight this starter issue (we're headed to Toyota in South Africa to put in a new starter tomorrow but I'm concerned that we may actually be dealing with a problem with the factory-installed alarm system (for which the prior owners lost the keys to - so it is 'inactive'). But, I digress, as I worked on the car, I kept hearing this buzzing sound and then noticed lots of bees around. I looked around the corner of the house and the above picture was what I saw - a swarm of wild bees.



Now, we are in Africa, so these must be the wild killer African bees that eat men, women and dogs that we heard so much about in the States - must be? We did some research on-line and our concern was this mass of bees would set up house keeping close to us or even in the house somewhere. We went through that in our newly married days in a farm house we lived in but that is another story for another time. So, we talked with some workers around the place we live and the general consensus was that they would probably be gone at first light. But, that was not to bee ;0.



So, I explored getting an area bee-keeper to come get the bees but the workers said they could move them on their way. So they built a fire under the tree, but the wind took the smoke away too fast and it didn't do too much. So, next they took a coconut tree branch and made a torch, added some lamp oil, and stuck it in the tree to drive them away. A big mass of them then fell right into the fire - so much for my desire to save the bees.




But, the remaining bees just moved the queen to the next tree, and so we started the process all over again. several times, they threw sticks at the mass of bees and a big clump of them would fly fall to the ground and then start flying all around. But eventually they got rid of them and that was the end. We kept thinking of our one daughter who carries an Epi-pen for injecting herself in the event of a bee sting - I sure didn't want these bees close if she comes to visit!

But amazingly, although the bees chased us around a bit, no one was stung, which I found amazing. I hope they moved on to a nice nest up high in a tree somewhere!



What surprised me was the innate fear we felt because of these bees. My grandfather was a bee-keeper and I've been around bees and didn't fear them. But, the media had convinced me that African bees would be the end of all of us! There really was nothing to fear, which is truly how we should live. I've really got to stop reading the news!!


No more killer bees today.


Dave & Ann

"And it shall come to pass in that day that the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the farthest part of the rivers of Eygpt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria [or maybe Africa!]" Is 7:18

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." 2Ti 1:7