Bees at a ballgame

[Jesse]

There was a swarm of bees at the Astros/Padres game that caused a 52 minute delay. Hopefully, this won't turn into bad press coverage.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=290702125

[Hambone]

I just saw it on sports center. They killed them.

[Marc]

I can't believe they killed that swarm. What a great opportunity wasted to show thousands of people in the stadium how easy it is to house a swarm and to handle bees. Just infuriating. Who is that so called beekeeper that they called and that killed them?

[G3farms]

that was not a beek, that was an exterminator.

G3

[Oldbee]

"What a great opportunity wasted to show thousands of people in the stadium how easy it is to house a swarm and to handle bees. Just infuriating."

Maybe next time. In the "heat of the moment" I suppose they couldn't think of other options. With a swarm box there, the bees might have just walked right in, in 30 minutes rather than 52.

[Julian Lewis]

He did a pretty good job of dousing himself too!!!

[Hillside]

So, a swarm of bees inserted itself into a stadium filled with thousands of people and no one was stung. Sounds like a good story.

They had seen swarms at the stadium before, just not at game time. It sounds like they should keep some bait hives set about in inconspicuous places so that swarms are more likely to settle into a nice home instead of under a jacket.

[donniethebeeman]

What a waste, just last week i rescued a colonie from inside a wall in a local bussiness. The owner was going to call the exterminator when but when he seen my flyer in the local post office he figured he would rather me take them home for free than an exterminator charge him $500 to kill them all

[Chick]

I posted a thread on this earlier. It was in San Diego, and the commentors stated that they figured California would not let them kill anything. Anyway, this guy comes out in a white suit and veil, with 2 aerosol foggers and killed them all. He could have thrown a sheet over the chair and jacket, and carried the whole thing off. But, I figure he was under instructions to kill them asap, so they could get on with their million dollar ball game. It was interesting to me, in that I had just gone out and collected 2 colonies of bees, and then saw a guy I know, who specializes in cut-outs, going to another job. An hour later, I saw the swarm problem on TV.

[geoffkb]

I live within a few miles of Petco Park and my business is live swarm removal. I get calls all the time from people who are concerned enough about honey bees to seek out a beekeeper who will remove them alive.

Imagine my horror when I got an email from someone telling me what happened. I was sickened when I saw it on our local television news.

I read on the 10News.com site,

"It looked harmless, but let me tell you there was a big ball of bees under that jacket," Yoder said. "Every one of those bees you saw in the outfield, every single one of them went underneath that jacket."

It doesn't come much easier than that!

I've emailed local news organizations, and the Padres to try to put the other view. Richard Andersen from the Padres did call me and was clearly concerned that they do the right thing next time.

I wrote a piece which was published on San Diego news Network - http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2009-07...for-the-padres

It's just devastating that not only did a few thousand people in the stadium see a swarm killed, by a 'beekeeper' but it was shown on ESPN, and many other places. Millions of people have been given the impression that it is necessary to kill a swarm of bees.

I would have sprayed a little water, gently put the jacket, swarm and all, into an empty hive (to enforce the message they would be relocated), strapped it up and taken it away. Wouldn't it have been great if they'd let me drive my truck onto the field so the cameras could pick up 'San Diego Bees' on the side?

[Chick]

Maybe it was just in Texas, but in 2007, there was some kind of law passed, in responce to the dropping number of bees, that made it illegal to kill swarms unless they has shown themselves to be aggressive or Africanized. I was watching the game when it started, and watching the initial reaction, it was funny. But after watching the outcome, I was not happy. At one point, one of the stadium workers had a really big plastic bag, and I thought he was just going to go out there and cover the whole chair and jacket, and carry the whole thing off the field. It was so simple. All the bee keeper had to do was cover the whole thing with a sheet, invert it, and walk off with it to put the bees in a box. Totally stupid.

[dcross]

The White House groundskeeper could teach them a few things...