Anna and I were playing in the backyard with Leila after we got home from work/daycare. Normal fun time, swings, slide, etc. Then Anna wanted me to get the pooper scooper and hunt down some poop. Yeah, she thinks that's a pretty good time - her finding poop, me scooping it up, her watching and commenting, "That's Leila's poop! It's stinky." The pooper scooper was leaning against the deck so we headed that direction.
As I was prepping the scooper, I noticed Leila skittering by me in a very strange way - tail between her legs, very scared and submissive. And she had these weird little yellow dots on her. It occurred to me that they were bees and at that moment I should have quickly shuttled all three of us into the house, but the brain is really slow to recognize serious danger in a context where you're just not expecting it at all. I tried momentarily to shoo them off of Leila before glancing over at Anna, who was curiously observing the dozen or so bees swarming around her and landing on her jacket. OMG FIRE HOT RED ALERT TIME.
I scooped up Anna, sprinted up the steps, pounded on the sliding door, yelled at Chris that we were being attacked by bees, and then... well, honestly it's a little hazy because I was in total panic mode. Interesting how panic makes you drop little bits of memory... anyway, we all somehow ended up inside (quite a feat since Leila didn't want to come in), but there were still bees around us in the house and probably a dozen or so still stuck on poor Leila, who had already been stung several times. Anna crying because she's scared, all of us freaking all the way out.
Then Anna screeches in pain and holds up her hand with a bee firmly attached and stinging. I screech myself and slap her poor hand hard to get the bee off, then grab her and sprint upstairs to our first aid stuff. Leila tried to follow us up there, which is the LAST thing we wanted with her covered in bees. Poor Leila - the vet said that when animals are stung with their people nearby, they think the people are hurting them! So she already thinks we're torturing her and she's slinking upstairs with me to go away for her punishment. We are SCREAMING at her to go downstairs but poor thing, she just couldn't understand. I had to almost kick her down the stairs and shut the gate to keep her from reaching our bedroom.
At that point we split up. I took Anna into the bathroom and Chris took Leila out front to get de-beed. Chris said they were all burrowing under her fur on their way to her skin. He even found one in her ear, ugh! Once Anna and I were in the bathroom I swatted one bee that followed us upstairs and stomped it into the carpet. Then I found another one BURROWING IN THE BACK OF MY HAIR and swatted at it wildly until it flew out. It started buzzing around the light fixture so I grabbed the bandaids, first aid cream, and children's tylenol and took Anna into our bedroom, shutting that horrid bee in our bathroom. I calmed her down, let her open her Dora bandaid (one of her favorite things to do), and gave her a dose of Tylenol. She settled down and we just waited up there for Chris to come back.
When I heard him come in I walked out to the landing that looks over the living room and noticed a half dozen bees up in the front semi-circle window. He was in the process of killing the ones left in the house with the only spray we had, which was an outdoor nest-killing spray for wasps and hornets, powerful stuff. Once they were all dead he came up so we could regroup and give each other holy-$#%@-did-that-just-happen looks. We inspected Anna's sting to make sure the stinger wasn't still in, then decided to look outside and see if we could figure out where they were coming from. It took about two seconds for us to spot a hole at the base of our deck still swarming with bees. Yellow jacket ground bees, mean mothers. http://bit.ly/9gnES9
Once the coast was totally clear, Anna and I went downstairs to eat supper while Chris went to buy a full can of nest-killing bee/wasp spray. He emptied the whole can into both holes - hope that did the trick.
I was really nervous about the amount of strong pesticide in the house so after supper I went into cleanup mode. Took down the curtains in the front window and the back sliding door, which was also sprayed. Then I went to work with a big bucket of dishwater and wiped down every single surface that might have even possibly been sprayed. We kept the windows open all night (even though it was cold) to help everything air out. Quite an undertaking, but very necessary. We had no choice but to spray it in order to kill those aggressive bees, but man, is it nasty stuff.
Poor Leila really got the worst of it - several stings and the scare of her life. She cowered, shaking under the table for a little while before I coaxed her out for some treats and snuggles. Anna would periodically cry as her sting would start hurting again, but she absolutely refused to let us ice it.
So that's the story. Everything is back to normal now, though we are keeping a very close eye on that hole for any signs of life. Fingers crossed that we never have another awful bee incident like this ever again!
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