Dang bees

Yesterday I discovered a drowned yellow jacket in our kitchen sink.

Let me back up.

Wednesday I came home with an armload of groceries and nearly stepped on a yellow jacket camped on our kitchen floor. We had a staredown for a few moments during which I tried to decide if he was injured or just trying to intimidate me. Since he didn’t try to fly away but was obviously alive, I grabbed the nearest large weapon – a kitchen towel. I slapped him a few times with it but he just buzzed along the floor and, most importantly, DIDN’T DIE. He was too big to squish but too injured to fly away, so I trapped him under a plastic container and left him on the floor while I made dinner and washed dishes. At some point I remembered that we had an invasion of yellow jackets during the summer due to a nest lodged under our deck within the house. After weeks of killing yellow jackets who had meandered into the apartment during the day through the open windows (we’d come home to five or 10 of them crawling on the floor or languishing in the window sills), we finally called the landlord to get rid of the dang thing (also our friends were starting to get nervous to sit near the windows). The nest was promptly removed because, as our landlord said, what if they came further into the house and found a way into our apartment from the inside?

I then dropped to my knees and inspected where the floor met the walls but I didn’t find any others. This one must have just gotten lost. After dinner, I decided to move him from the kitchen floor to the kitchen counter so I gingerly slid a piece of paper under the plastic container and transported him to the counter, where I left him while I went and visited a friend. Mark came home later and “discovered” him (“Why is there a yellow jacket on the counter??” “I told you he was there!”) and must’ve nudged him into a water-filled bowl in the sink and left him there, where I found him the next day.

I almost texted Mark, “Why am I coming home to a dead yellow jacket in the sink?”

But then I figured I’d probably get back, “Why did I come home to a LIVE yellow jacket on the counter?” Fair question.