Bees In The Bellfry!
15 November 2007
While Dream Chaser was on the hard getting painted, a swarm of bees decided to make their new home in the top of our mast! One day, shortly after she was relaunched and we were back in our slip at Bahia Redonda, I was down below cleaning, and had the screens on the companionway to keep the flies out. All of a sudden I noticed a couple of bees on the screen, but on the inside of the boat. I wondered to myself how they got in, but they must have just crawled in through the cracks of the wooden frames on the screens. I mentioned it to Shane who was outside at the time, and he agreed with me. But what I noticed was, after a short while, there were more and more bees gathering on the inside of the screens. This got me thinking....they are inside and they want out! I immediately yanked the companion screens off and we both looked up at the top of the 63' mast to see a huge swarm of bees flying around it. The nest must be inside the mast and they were finding their way down the mast, through the bilge and up through the floorboards to the screens where they knew they could get outside again.
We divised a plan after lunch that had myself and many others laughing as Shane started to gear up. I wanted to have my camera out ready to take pictures, but it was a pretty serious matter, and I thought I might get into "trouble"! My friend Jeannie had a mosquito hat with netting and some wasp spray that shot 25' they kept onboard to spray at attacking pirates. Shane put on the mosquito hat along with his foul weather gear, and neoprene gloves. Remember, its about 95 degrees out. Starting to sweat profusly, and armed with the can of wasp spray, I hoisted Shane up the mast on a halyard all the way to the top. He was prepared for the worst, and was hoping the foul weather gear and mosquito netting would protect him from potentially hundreds of bee stings he could get when he sprayed into the mast! I was having visions of visiting a Venezuelan clinic again. But much to our surprise, nothing happened. No bees, no stings, just an empty can of pirate "mace" and one very sweaty captain!
Well, as it turns out, luck was on our side. I guess I killed most of the bees before Shane even got suited up. Prior to him going up the mast, I had spray Raid in the bilge, which in turn had seeped up the inside of the mast. Bees were dropping like crazy down the inside of the mast, dropping into the bilge and dying soon after. I think they all died or flew the nest by the time Shane was all suited up and ready to go, thank goodness!