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5/28/2009 3:33 AM

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Like many of you, we were visited this past holiday weekend by a mass of uninvited and noisy party crashers who forced us to sit quietly by and hope they'd leave soon.

Not that I don't love my family.

Scientists have been concerned about the dwindling bee population. Worry no more, lab coat boys. They're all at our house - at least, they were for a few hours this past Saturday.

After a neighbor sprayed some cornfields with pesticide, a swarm of bees arrived. It's one of the odd events we've come to expect between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July on the farm, when the land is awakened forcibly by invading machinery.

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Creatures big and small are displaced and often come to visit at this time of year. Like family, they usually arrive hungry, cranky and empty-handed, never saying how long they're going to stay.

The swarm formed in a gigantic bee party ball, a buzzing, crawling orgy of creepiness, on one of the fence posts near our chicken coop.

I heard them long before seeing them. Walking toward the electric razor sound, I found somewhere between a hundred and a million bees had found a new home way, way too close to our old home. Sorry to be sketchy on the exact number, but they wouldn't stand still to be counted and I refused to stand any closer than 50 feet.

Had my wife and I not once endured more than a dozen stings each after unearthing a nest, we might have stuck around long enough to study the fascinating world of our friends, the happy hive dwellers. Instead, our inclination was, as usual, to douse most of the county in gasoline, light a match and run for our lives.

I'll pause now for the more educated and letter writing of readers to compose a lecture about bees and the food chain. Blah blah blah pollination. Blah blah blah fruit trees. Blah blah blah tax the rich.

Bees are the divorce lawyers of the natural world - necessary elements of society who are seldom invited for a cookout.

There's no proof that the beekeepers - those singular and unique hobbyists who have boxes of rental bees available by the week or month, men and women who espouse the virtues of home-grown honey - love their bees as pets.

I know how exterminators feel about bees. They're respectful, yes; fascinated, certainly; but I would wager that they're thankful, mostly. Without bees and the electric fear they cause, exterminators would be sitting around all day in those groovy HazMat spacesuits waiting for an unemployment check to arrive.

We were within minutes of making that rescue phone call to "Bs B Gone" or any number of other rapid response insect teams when, as quickly as they arrived, the swarm left and we were once again alone.

They'll be back.

In another month when we're cutting hay, they'll be displaced and are again likely to crash the party.

Next time, boys, at least bring your own honey.

To hear Scott Paulsen's column, visit www.observer-reporter.com. He can be heard each weekday afternoon from 3-7 p.m. on 1250 ESPN Radio.

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