Well the buckets sprayed with bee killer seems to have done the trick.  There were a bunch of dead bees around the entrances and I am hoping that some bees that had been coated with the poison returned to the underground core of the hive to spread the poison to the queen.  I have dumped dirt over the two entrances and soaked it with water.  I’ll monitor the two spots for the next several days to see if new entrances appear.

Thanks for you comments on the previous two posts, I appreciate the input.

Seeing that I needed to do something about the bees living in my front yard I logged into my Homepages Friends account and searched for ways to eradicate the bee infestation.

Side note about Homepages Friends: This is a way to earn money by doing searches that you would probably do anyway.  I have been signed up for a week or so and have earned £1.33 [it is a British company] on 79 searches.  At today’s exchange rate that is $2.45.  Of course there is a referral program, so if you are interested in joining please follow one of my links so I can get credit for referring you.  As of today I have 2 referrals that have earned £.02 for me.  I receive 10% of my first tier referrals so I presume that they have earned £.20 for themselves.  HomePages Friends pays out when you reach £20.00 to either a PayPal account or a British bank account.  The search results come from Yahoo UK so they are a little skewed toward British domains…just an FYI.

Back to the Bees.

According to one website I should make a torch by wrapping canvas around a long stick and douse it in gasoline.  The next step was to light it and hold it over the hole in the ground at night.  The light from the torch is suppose to draw the bees out and in doing so will fry them like Joan of Arc as the exit the hole. WHAT??? I question the effectivness of this idea. This approach seems a bit dangerous to the extent that I may get stung again.

Further reading on that website brought your typical pour gasoline down the hole and light it.  Given the explosive nature of gasoline I kept reading.  Pouring bleach seemed like another popular idea but I question the environmental impact as well as the quantity needed to accomplish the task.

Near the bottom of the page I found a possible approach that I am trying.  This idea consists of finding a bucket for each entrance and spraying them with bee killer.  Then after dark when they have returned to the hive place the buckets over the holes and place a stone on top.  The theory goes that the bees will come into contact with the poison and then return to the hive to die taking the poison with them.  I’ll post an update after I know how well this works.

We had family over today for a cookout and some swimming.  The temperature was mid 80’s with a fairly high level of humidity.  A good day for a swim.  I had been watering the front lawn prior to everyone’s arrival dispite the fact that rain was a possibility.  The lawn had gotten a little crispy in spots.

Fast forward to T minu 15 to arrival time.  It began to sprinkle.  Darn it!  We decided to place a tarp on the deck to create an area underneath the deck for the food and some people to sit to get out from the rain.  Our house is a walkout so the deck is quite tall.

The first guest start to arrive and the rain tapers off.  Great timing by Mother Nature.  The grill was cooking chicken, brats and hot dogs.  As the food was cooking a bunch of the kids hit the water.  Most of the adults just watched.  I had my suit on but since no other adults were swimming I decided to play lifeguard.

Dinner was great..plenty of awesome tasting food was consumed.  After dinner was time for games.  Inside the pool table got its first action in months and the table tennis matches were mostly fast paced.  I think that everyone had a good time.

Why the title of this post??? As people were leaving my brother-in-law stepped in an area in the front lawn that collapsed.  The “sinkhole” was about the size of his foot.  It turns out that the sprinkling earlier in the day combined with his weight had collaped a ground bee hive.  And they were mad.  Fortunately none of my guests received bee stings.  But after they all left I decided to spray the hole and their original entrance with bee spray.  This activity resulted in a bee in my shirt and a sting right above the waistband.  There’s the Ouch.

From the Associated Press:

Rich Fasi of Traverse City says he found a dead 2-foot shark in the water while fishing on West Grand Traverse Bay on Wednesday.

The saltwater fish was a juvenile blacktip shark, said Mark Tonello, a fisheries biologist from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

Tonello said someone might have caught the shark off the Atlantic Coast and kept it on ice while bringing it to northern Michigan.

Another possibility is that the dead shark was dumped by someone who had kept it as a pet, Tonello said.

Todd Rogers and Phil Dalhausser follow up Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor by taking the Gold Medal too!  Two for two for the Americans! The United States becomes the first country in Olympic beach volleyball history to sweep gold at the same Games.

Rogers and Dalhausser defeated the Brazilian team of Marcio Araujo and Fabio Magalhaes 23-21, 17-21, 15-4.

“I just got in the zone,” Dalhausser said. “You know, some athletes say you just get in a zone and you don’t think. You just do it and you do all the right things. It’s pretty amazing.”

Good job to both men’s and women’s teams!

The women’s team of Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor has done it!  They have won the Beach Volleyball Gold Medal! They have become the first pair to win back-to-back Olympic Gold Medals in Beach Volleyball.  Congrats.

They had to overcome both the number seeded Chinese team and the weather.  The Gold Medal match was played in a heavy rain.

“This is just another reason why we play in bathing suits,” May-Treanor said.

The team of Walsh and May-Treanor beat Wang Jie and Tian Jia in straight sets 21-18, 21-18.  This win solidifies them as the most dominate beach volleyball team in history.

This week I had a choice, go to my weekly beach volleyball game or go to my son’s first high school soccer game of the year.  Here it is the middle of August and they are playing soccer already.  Ok I made the right choice and schlepped 20 miles to the soccer game.

He is a sophmore playing his second year on varsity [due to the fact that the school he attends doesn't have a JV team].  He didn’t start but he had a good amount of playing time as a Striker.  The team won 7-3 over a team that beat them 4-3 last year.  A good start to the season and I’m glad I went although I missed playing volleyball.

Last week on the beach volleyball court I had another great series of games, winning all but one.

It has been two weeks since the last time I had the chance to play volleyball because last Tuesday night’s games were canceled.  I’ve been jonesing to play because of the Olympics.  Go Team USA!  The women’s team of Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor have been on fire in their first two games.  So far they look like they will repeat as Gold Medalists.

Yesterday they beat the 14th-seeded Cuban team of Dalixia Fernandez Grasset and Tamara Larrea Peraza, who are in their third Olympics, by the score of 21-15 and 21-16.  Next up are the Norwegians on Thursday, another match they are expected to win.

It is time to pump up the revenue generated by this blog [not much revenue so far] so I signed up with PerformancingAds.

Why PerformancingAds?  Well they claim to have the largest 125×125 marketplace on the planet.  They allow you to set your price.  And they allow you to payout at the end of the month you earned your money.

It was a real easy setup.  I downloaded their plugin, unzipped it in the WordPress plugin directory and then activated it.  It is widget ready so I inserted the widget in my sidebar, added the region code and saved it.  Boom I’m done.

Of course they have an affiliate program so click my link if you find this interesting.