I swear to god this neighborhood keeps getting rougher...
Today (August 2nd) at 12:00 noon I spotted this itinerant horde of bees slowly making its way down 14th street between Mission and Valencia. The roving mass was apparently following a fugitive queen as she made her way down the block, clustering on top of cars and buildings with no concern for private property. Police assured a concerned public that there was, in fact, an emergency beekeeper on his way, and that there was no cause for alarm.
Update: Emergency Beekeeper responds!
Wow, an Emergency Beekeeper? What other strange emergency services might exist? Do they all have special emergency numbers too?
I suspect that I can still just call 311 for access to emergency beekeeping.
I just hope they have a beemobile.
I was thinking maybe they could have 833 as their emergency number. Then, you could have 4173 for fire services and so on.
Fun fact: The Emergency Beekeeper gets to keep any bees he catches!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee
And they weren't supposed to make it as far north as San Francisco, but clearly global climate change has changed all that.
fucking NAFTA!
Ummm... no.
Normal bees swarm too. Its part of the process of colony reproduction. A swarm is no real indication of africanization.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarming_(honey_bee)
I guess now we know where all the missing bees went.
what, no citing for the link to http://missionmission.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/squid-with-human-like-teethgloryholes-for-beginners-mashup/ on that same blog page?
I'm just imagining the dusty yellow and black phone in the emergency beekeeper's study lighting up and buzzing in an 'alert! alert!' fashion. Emergency Beekeeper freezes, honeycomb halfway to lips, eyes wide. The phone hasn't rung in ten years. His beard is long. Muttering checklists under his breath, he hastily grabs gear that hasn't been oiled in a long time and a uniform that's too tight now after answering the phone and telling the commissioner that he's on his way.
The first fully-bearded beekeeper I met said,
"To be perfectly honest, the honey is a bonus. I keep bees simply because they are bees."
As I found out last October, you can find emergency beekeepers in the Yellow Pages under B, for Bees. They are a busy bunch, and they're worth every penny they ask.
http://morrisa.livejournal.com/22540.html#cutid1
The proper response in such situations is to drive the car into the Superdome and crank up the air conditioning.