..and the Bees

I learned some things today about bumblebees. I have been getting my deck ready for spring and summer, planting herbs and cleaning etc. with the kid's help. Over the past couple of days we noticed a couple of bumblebees bumbling around our deck. They always hovered in the same place. Tonight though there were 4 of them, and slightly more aggresive, perhaps due to the fact that i was wielding a fly swatter and Emily a garden hose sprayer. They would not leave, and continued dive bombing us. We finally decided they must be building a nest, so i had Emily do a little research to find out what it was all about, and here's what we learned: 1.) Bumblebees live in a colony with a queen, nurses and worker bees, numbering upto 2,000. 2.) Bumblebees have only one natural predator, and that is a skunk. 3.) Bumblebees are on the endangered species list and killing a bumblebee can carry the same penalty as killing a bald eagle. 4.) Unlike other species of bees, bumblebees can sting multiple times and not die afterwards. 5.) The colony is living under our deck. Having given this much careful consideration, and having weighed the pros and coms of skunk ownership, we have decided to try peaceful coexistence. On the upside, bumblebees typically dont attack unless threatened and colonies do not nest in the same place twice, so if we make it through this year we should have filled our responsibility to endangered species everywhere.