Yellow-jacket invasion put down

Cobb Manor has become a beehive, apparently.

A large family of yellow jackets has decided to spend the winter with me, apparently. The yellow jacket family announced its intentions one night last week at about 2:30 a.m., when I woke up after rolling over onto the first visitor with a searing pain in my arm.

There was a bee in my bed!

I got up to put ice on the arm, thanking all of the gods that exist that the sting wasn’t in a more sensitive area, one I could possibly use again once more before the end of my life.

Returning to the master’s bedroom, I saw other, highly lethargic yellow jackets buzzing around the inside of my windowsill.

This was a first.

It was the first unseasonably cold night, possibly driving the bees indoors. Why did they choose my room? The next morning, I walked around the house, looking for a hive. Then, it dawned on me. I had hired a Jefferson crew to reshingle the roof, after about 25 years of neglect. They cleared one side of the house, then covered the boards with tarps, in anticipation of “a few days” of rain. Naturally, it has rained for more than a week.

Each cold day brought more and more bees to my room. I swatted them on the windows and around my bedroom light.

Needless to say, I slept in another bedroom to avoid further sneak attacks. I must have killed 30 of them. Since they were always around the windows, I suspected they might be coming in there, not the tarped roof.

This was not my first experience with yellow jackets. Back when I first bought Cobb Manor and actually mowed the lawn, I quickly learned that bees have hives in the ground as well as in trees and eaves of houses. Dressed in T-shirts and shorts, I apparently mowed right over the hive and got at least a dozen bites, mostly in my ears. I had forgotten how much bee stings sting.

I took the attack as a sign from God to mow the lawn only when emergencies arise.

I have no idea if the 2003 edition of my yellow jacket family is related to that group, still hold a grudge and decided to infest my house.

Like the classic 1950 horror movies, I was forced to adopt the “Ultimate Solution.” I went to Wal-Mart and bought Real Kill, the most toxic wasp spray I could find. Defending my home, I sprayed the window edges and the rope pulley area, which I suspected held thousands of yellow jackets, massing an attack. I sprayed the holes in the window sashes where the sides didn’t meet exactly.

Naturally, I overdid it. I had to destroy the bedroom in order to save it.

I still can’t sleep in my bedroom. Now the problem isn’t the bees, it is the Real Kill insect spray. I suspect this brew has a toxic half-life of at least a few years. Inhaling in my bedroom is like driving by the smokestack of the old waste recycling center on Route 17 that eventually turned into a Superfund site.

But so far, it has worked. No new bees.

During the day, I look carefully before I sit down. At night, I cower under my comforter, keeping my mouth closed, listening all night for the telltale buzzing, with my killer bottle of wasp spray close at hand.

Did you hear buzzing?

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.