Arianna Georgi

 Poor bees.  Not only are they disappearing at a terrifying rate, but whenever they do set up a home and try and get comfortable someone tries to give them or their hive away for free on Craigslist.  Like this guy:

I just found out we had this hive last night after work. I don’t have time or interest in messing with it. The pic was taken yesterday closest to the edge of deck. Had I had the courage to pan over to the right and take another picture you would have another 12 feet of comb running along three spacings between the framing. Some comb hanging down two feet long! Total area of comb 36 square feet? But there could be two hives under there from what it looks like.

My wife is terribly allergic to bees. I hear there are africanized bees in San Diego now, so if you want to split the honey 50/50 and your remove the comb and all let me know.

Personally, I don’t think this sounds like a very good deal.  You have to come to this guy’s house, remove the hive for free, and you only get to keep “half” the honey???  I think normally you have to pay people to remove bee hives, especially if you fear they are dangerous “Africanized” bees.  If any honey is involved, I think the person that risked their life with dangerous bee removal gets to keep it.

I decided to email this guy to see if he was really hung-up on the 50/50 honey situation, letting him know I would remove the bees, but I was unlikely to let him keep the honey if I did.  “I’ll take care of your bees,” I wrote, “but I want ALL the honey.  Is this okay?”  I have yet to hear back, but I will let you know if I do.  If push comes to shove I am willing to negotiate a 30/70 honey situation, but no less.  We’ll see…

Tags: bees, Free Stuff, honey

Sometimes, in the morning, I get a cup of coffee and troll craigslist looking at their “Free stuff” section to see if there is anything good.  Mostly it’s just pictures of free couches with suspicious looking stains or someone giving away a bizarre assortment of things they found in the back of their yard and/or freezer (a recent posting was for free soy ice cream bars and the poster swore that they had only eaten one), but occasionally there is something really awesome on their (not that I ever go get the awesome things… I am too lazy, even for free stuff).  Anyway, this morning, there was this mysterious post for, for free bees:

–Free Bees, you remove.

The post also had a phone number, but there was really no other supplementary information.  This, of course is exactly the kind of thing that gets me thinking.  What circumstances lead you to have a bunch of free bees?  What do people charge for bees that aren’t free?  With the nationwide shortage of bees should we even really be giving bees away?  How do you remove a bunch of free bees? 

I am sort of tempted to call this person and try and get the free bees for myself.  Having an army of bees to do my bidding would be pretty awesome (although I imagine bees are sort of hard to control and more interested in making honey than waging war).  Anyway, thought I would toss it up here so everyone else could ponder it too…

Tags: bees, craigslist, free