unwelcome guests.....post edit

Traditionally Memorial Day weekend is spent (at least in our family) out in the backyard.  Completing unfinished projects, weeding, planting, dusting off patio furniture, swimming, tanning, firing up the bar-b-que, eating large amounts of sweet watermelon.

This year we had unwelcome guests.  Bees.  Lots & lots of them as a matter of fact.  Buzzing around our heads like little fighter jets warning us off from their new home in my cherry tree.  Which by the way is full of cherries almost ready to be picked. :(

After realizing they had no intention of leaving our party, I decided that spraying them with the hose would get them to leave.  hahaha - so.not.effective.  Matthew got in on the process and thought a shovel would do the trick.  Since the poor things were half drowned following my attempts, and after being told to "not whack my tree, to scrape them off" Matthew promptly ran in brandishing his shovel and whacked the hive.  Needless to say it did nothing except break tree branches which made the whole thing more visible.  Katie, even though she is allergic to bees, wanted part of the fun too so she got back in there with the hose and squirted off another huge portion.  Eventually Mike got involved and asked why we hadn't used the wasp spray.  Why hadn't we?  'Cause it wouldn't have been as much fun!  Of course that worked, and the poor things suffered what looked to be a painful death, but those that weren't killed skedaddled right out of our yard so we could enjoy the remainder of the day.  Of course the action was so fast and furious I got zero pictures of it all.

This morning as I am doing my morning things I wander out to the back yard and what do I see?  You guessed it, a massive cloud of bees around my cherry tree.  Of course my first thought was to hose them down again but there were so many I thought I'd probably be introuble.  So a calm mind prevailed, and back inside I came.  Not half an hour later as I peeked out to see if the coast was clear not a bee in sight.  Instead this is what I found -

I really hate bees.

Post Edit:  so the bees are gone.  apparently they were moving to a new and better address.  hopefully far, far from me.  i am feeling slightly guilty for all their aunts, uncles, cousins & friends i so unmercifully killed monday.  please forgive me, but i still really do have bees.