Bee in my bonnet

My home is guarded like a fortress…..no living specimen (besides bacteria, viruses and other minuscule mean little nothings) can enter…except of course when we let them through the front door.

But unfortunately, with the lockdown, the pest control guys were not allowed up, and when they were, we would rather let in pests than humans.

The net effect was that we spotted a tiny cockroach by a spider….and more spiders.

These may have made their way in surreptitiously through our front door….. on one of the rare occasion when it was as opened…. and we quickly took care of the ones been found.

Then the 🦟 started venturing in and robbing my children’s sleep. But we couldn’t figure out how they made our house their home.

The only thing I’m mortally scared of is a reptile, that on rare occasions, makes it’s entry from the main door….the reptile…..It-who-must-not-be named.

But one day, when the family had gathered on the living room in full strength , watching whatever out daughters were watching (always BTS), my younger daughter let off a 1000 decibel shriek and climbed on top of the other one, wailing away.

I know that scream…it generally means a fly or something other insignificant creature has made it into the room. ( I don’t blame her ….she had stepped on an anthill as a kid and had survived an attack by an army of red ants).

So I calmly looked around trying to spot the culprit, position my chappal for a good swat..

But there wasn’t any.

It was then, in the middle of the sobbing, I heard a faint buzz. It couldn’t bee…. but there it was…in flesh and blood!

Someone deserved a firing for leaving a net open.

But a bee on the sixth floor….

It definitely was a 🐝 …..my son was very confident it was a queen bee…but I think it’s below her majesty’s dignity to venture into humble human abodes, and she must be too busy making babies anyway.

While the others argued over whether it was an army bee or worker bee…. my single minded focus was that it shouldn’t be allowed to be…anyways, the fan blades took care of that….and slowly but surely, calm prevailed, and all was forgotten.

The next day, as we were gathered together for some fun time as usual, there was another buzz and the earlier day’s evening played over again.

Someone smartly switched on the fan and it was the end of another bee

. I am non-violent ( except when it comes to tackling my impossible son), so I wasn’t really happy killing bees. I’d rather keep them out along with all other six and eight legged creatures.

So, we inspected the window glasses and nets to check if anything was fixed in the wrong order…..but no, everything was perfect.

It was then that we spotted them…

One blazing gaze from my husband and my son started bawling, “I didn’t do it”.

He had managed to scrape a line with his car or be-blade or whatever else it was he was using, but he had grown out of that now.

The problem turned out to be something else.

The fierce summer heat had broken the pigeon nets tacks and a cute little squirrel had been making an appearance every day…waiting for his daily serving of 🐿.

The guy’s sharp claws were responsible for the bees’ entry.

But there was a bee in my bonnet. Where did the bees come from?

I mean I know they came in from the window, but we’re on the sixth floor and there are no hives around.

At least I thought they weren’t.

Then I remembered my fifth or seventh floor neighbour ( I don’t remember which…it was four years ago..) calling me to ask whether there were bees outside my window.

There must have been….except that I mustn’t have spotted them…..a couple of them must have found the squirrel created holes…..after four years of buzzing around🐝🐝