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Author Topic: call for the books  (Read 3546 times)

Offline Kathyp

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call for the books
« on: June 28, 2009, 12:47:07 am »
i answer the phone and it goes something like this

is kathy there?

this is kathy.

i have a swarm.

can you tell me about it?

bees are coming and going from a hole in a tree in my yard.

ok, you don't have a swarm. you have a hive in your tree.

that's what the exterminator said.
ya and he closed up the hole and now a bunch of bees are hanging on the tree.  can you come get them?

the queen is inside the hole. 

that's what the exterminator said.

do you want the tree?

YES  it's my best tree.

can you live with a hive in the tree?

no.  will you come get the bees?

you have blocked up the hole and the queen and bees inside will die.  there is nothing for me to come get except for some stragglers outside the hive.

that's what the exterminator said, and he might have put something in the hole before he blocked it.

well, thank you for calling, but it would not be worth my time to come out for those bees.

that's what all the other beekeepers i called said.  no one wants to save these bees.

and then there were random bee questions.......

Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Bee Happy

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #1 on: June 28, 2009, 12:53:13 am »
she didn't rule out a trapout?
be happy and make others happy.

Offline Cheryl

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2009, 12:56:45 am »
Haa!! Kathyp, that is really funny! I hope you're keeping these in a notebook... every profession needs a book of "dumb client" stories. :lol:
We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

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Offline JP

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2009, 01:04:15 am »
It takes all kinds. :shock: :?


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Offline Robo

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #4 on: June 28, 2009, 08:24:17 am »
that's what all the other beekeepers i called said.  no one wants to save these bees.

No,  he/she chose not to save the bees :buttkick:
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison



Offline G3farms

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2009, 09:17:51 am »
that doen't make a lot of sense, If she wanted to save the bees why did she call an EXTERMINATOR!!!!

Even though it is her best tree she is forgetting that it is hollow to some extent and will eventually die or be broken over.

G3
those hot bees will have you steppin and a fetchin like your heads on fire and your keister is a catchin!!!

Bees will be bees and do as they please!

Offline Kathyp

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #6 on: June 28, 2009, 10:39:10 am »
it was a he.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Hethen57

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #7 on: June 28, 2009, 10:54:01 am »
Sound like that wasn't the first time you received a dumb call like that....at least you learned all the right questions to ask so you didn't waste a bunch of time driving to some moron's house to see dead bees in a tree and some foragers buzzing.
-Mike

Offline Natalie

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #8 on: June 28, 2009, 03:27:43 pm »
I always wonder about people like that, do they realize they did something wrong and are trying to salvage something or are they just stupid?

I was at my son's baseball game the other day and a neighbor who lives down the street brought up the fact that she is having a company come spray her yard for mosquitos and recommended I do the same. I said no I'll just leave it up to the bats and she said well all the bats are dying so good luck.
So she tells her friend how stupid I am to not spray for mosquitos and her friend starts in so finally I tell them that I keep bees so I would not be spraying.
Then she said " I wish I knew you were a beekeeper you could have had my bees."
So I say, you kept bees?
"No, I had some in a tree, they were (using her hands to describe the swarm size,approx 2x2 feet) big, they were huge!"
So I said where are they now, she says "oh we burned them" and she actually started laughing when she said it.
I couldn't even talk to her after that outside of explaining that they were swarming and had just stopped to rest and they would have left in a couple of days or so.
 Its the mentality of some people, lets randomly spray, burn and just plain kill any insect they see. They don't bother to find out if its a pest or not. Its usually the same people that don't really appreciate or respect nature.
Many people lose touch or never were in touch with their surroundings or nature.

Offline doak

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #9 on: June 28, 2009, 03:52:42 pm »
Don't get me wrong, but I somehow don't like that word."stupid".
There are so many things that a lot of people are not educated in.

But it does seem he should have developed some kind of clue after the third or forth call.
Like that new saying goes, common seance has became such a rarity, it is now called a "super Power".
beats me. :)doak

Offline Kathyp

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #10 on: June 28, 2009, 03:56:14 pm »
Quote
common seance has became such a rarity, it is now called a "super Power

i like that.  to bad it's so true.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline JP

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #11 on: June 28, 2009, 05:03:14 pm »
Most of the people that call you after the fact had their minds made up in the first place about what they were going to do to that swarm or established colony, they either want reassurance or you to bail them out from the incredibly bad decision they made.

Case in point, the other day a guy called with bees in a fourteen foot column. The bees have been there for years. I knew after a few questions he had asked me, his mind was already made up to what he was about to do.

I was not about to reassure him that it was ok to seal up the column, nor spray the bees inside. He wanted me to, and I tried explaining to him that he was asking for trouble on so many different levels, but I know what the outcome was going to be and it was left at that.

I was polite and informative and did my best to persuade him from the inevitable, but people will do whatever they want to sometimes, even if it costs them a painful lesson.


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Offline wildbeekeeper

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2009, 08:55:51 am »
I think this thread is going to call for a long list of "a person called about bees once and........" stories.   I think there can be some pretty hunurous stories all along the same theme!  Kathy that story was funny....I think I may have talked to his brother once :)

Reminds me of the time a guy called about removing a raccoon from a chimney.  he begamn by telling me that he was hearing noises and all that fun stuff etc etc and I asked him long it had been going on for...he said a a couple of months until the other day when he and his brother went up on the roof and thew firecrackers down the chimney and when the coon came up he hit with a ball bat like you would hit a ball on a tee and it "flew" to the ground and ran away.  Now he was concerned because the noises are back and he wanted me to come get the raccoon......  what was that Forrest Gump once said...."stupid is as stupid does"......  I think we have a forum full of "super heroes"   lol

Offline Rebel Rose Apiary

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2009, 07:22:39 pm »
I like the calls where they try to tell me that bees are going extinct and they want me to pay them for swarms or colonies that they tried to get rid of by spraying, as there was some left alive..... :roll:

Then there are the ones who call and want me to tell them how to remove the bees themselves, as they are NOT going to pay me for something they KNOW they can do themselves....after all, they freak out when they find out a female is the one who does the removals....

Then there was the ones who wanted BEER MONEY for me doing a cutout that was going to be very difficult....and then they called back 7 more times asking me to just bring them some beer to drink while the watched me cut out the bees.

I also had calls asking me to pay them for bumbles, yeller jackets and calls to remove the bees that were landing in her flower garden....yep, I was going to go there and pick them off of the flowers one by one....sound more like Noah's Ark!

Brenda

Offline Highlandsfreedom

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Re: call for the books
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2009, 08:26:51 pm »
OK my story.... I had a lady call me about a swarm and I went over to her house. She was "deathly allergic" to the bees they were going to kill her!! So I asked where they were at and she pointed to the ground :? her ENTIRE yard was dandylions!!  She said if I would have come over in the morning there were WAY more bees for me to catch. She asked me if I had a net?? I tried to teach but she was right and I was wrong.  There was another call of a swarm and the guy tried EVERYTHING including black cats and they just wont go away??  Why I ask WHY!!! :? :'(
To bee or not to bee that is the question I wake up to answer that every morning...