Weapon of Buzz Destruction

makes me really sad

It makes me sad too. The worlds honeybees are actually dying out at an unprecedented rate from what I understand. Not only that, but the honey was contaminated with the bomb, so all their hard work was wasted! I know it’s probably just another media scare, but I’ve read articles that plant pollination could drop drastically because of the lowering population of honeybees. But I see the guys position, he wants to use his grill, knows it’s got bees in it, who in their right mind is going to stick their head under to find out how many are under there, much less that they’ve created those enormous honey combs. I’m sure he was staggered by the results.

If you read the comments in the forum, the original poster stole the story and the pictures from the news: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=665338

On another note, I don’t get what the big deal about the bees is. They were in his grill- what was he supposed to do? He never signed on to become a bee refuge. Also, he obviously didn’t know beforehand how many bees there were; if he had lifted the cover on the grill to look he likely would have been stung to death.

The theory is that this was a rogue colony started by some European honeybees that escaped from an Australian beekeeper, so it’s not even like he was harming the local wildlife.

As as for Colony Collapse Disorder (the dying off of the bees mentioned by Scottlass above), I read on the Straight Dope the other day that it was mostly exaggerated: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2823/why-are-the-bees-disappe aring

Teri, if you had a family of cats who decided to live in your garage, would you call somebody to come deal with them in a humane fashion or would you just toss a canister of poison gas in there and be done with them?

You never signed up to be a cat refuge after all…

Really, there are a lot of people who would have loved to come get the bees. Honey bees are not likely to hurt you, and a bee keeper could have gotten them into a situation they would have liked a lot more than where they were. I have bees, and they don’t bother me much, even when I’m “robbing” them. They aren’t looking for trouble. Bees are cool.

this is just sad

It is unfortunate that they didn’t think to call a local beekeeper, but it’s not common knowledge that a beekeeper can deal with a stray colony.

I’d worry a bit about food that I cook in that grill, now that it is covered with insecticide.

For an alternative method, take a look at the Wasp Sucking Machine

http://www.sentex.ca/~mwandel/built/wasp-sucker.html

I don’t think it is sad. I mean what was he going to do?
he couldn’t have possibly known that there was a huge hive/comb under the cover, I would have done the same thing.

Amazing.

Mmmmm…free honey.

What kind of dumbsh*t would kill honeybees, when there are alternatives? Any beekeeper (in the US anyway)would have collected the bees safely and moved them to a proper hive.

Plenty of ways to find a beekeeper who will remove a hive or swarm–go online and find a local beekeeping organization, call a pest control service (they can refer to a beekeeper), call the local county extension.