By Sigmund Shonholtz

It happened a few months ago, I noticed some dead bees on my patio, odd I thought but then I went on with my day. A few days later I noticed some bees in the corner congregating around, buzzing it up and what have you. Finally I realized that a family of bees had made a home inside the wall of the patio, it did not really bother me because they were in the corner. Now personally I like bugs, at least most of them, in fact if they do not threaten me I am rather encouraging and supportive, spiders are a favorite of mine. After a short while we came to an understanding and cohabited quite nicely, I tried not to step on them and they in turn bee hived (haved) by not stinging me. Soon we were great friends; if I had my breakfast outside they would sit on the table and buzz on about things that were important to them. Pollen, honey and such things as that were always a topic of conversation, and the queen also. You should have heard them complaining about her, a real princess they all said. Although secretly I think they wanted to bee with her, if you know what I mean.

I really appreciated the opportunity; living in a concrete jungle it seems there is never enough nature around us. I considered it a gift, to have this bee hive on my patio. Anyway…. one day I came to them with some very sad news, the building was going to be fumigated soon because of a termite infestation, and they were going to have to leave. Bee reasonable I told them, it’s not my fault, as far as I was concerned they could stay. In fact if they wanted to blame somebody they should complain to the director of the termites, it was their incessant eating that was the problems. Sadly, the ants who like to eat the eggs of the termites had left town and now the termites were taking over, that was the real problem.

It was then I learned that the bees and termites were bitter enemies. Apparently there had been an argument and finally a brutal battle between the two groups, about 100 million years ago. It seems a queen termite had fallen in love with a worker bee and the rest is history.

So on Friday I packed up my things, and asked them one last time to hit the road and bee t it. I left for the weekend.

When I returned on Sunday I immediately went to check on them at first glance it looked like they were OK, but then I realized that it was just a few left over soldiers that had been on patrol when the tent went up. There they were hanging around waiting for their hot queen to buzz them in, but no signal ever came. Soon the last ones died and I was once more left alone on my patio.

Sigmund Shonholtz is a master watchmaker and philosopher and is from Los Angeles.