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Citizen complaint of the day: Crate & Barrel & Bees

BEES!!!

A sting-averse citizen files a 311 complaint about the situation outside the Crate & Barrel on Boylston Street in the Back Bay:

Constituent states there is a beehive in the tree located outside of the store at crate and barrel. Constituent states that bees are swarming around the tree and bothering pedestrians on the sidewalk and customers of the store

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Comments

Nature is reclaiming the Back Bay.

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More likely hornets or paper wasps. Both of which are worse than bees.

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It could definitely be bees--they swarm to split a hive that's too big, or sometimes if the queen gets confused. When my husband worked in the Seaport, there was a hive on top of one of the hotels that swarmed about once a month. They had a very confused queen.

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I’ve seen many a confused queen teetering around the back bay after closing time...

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When they swarm, they're surprisingly docile. (Honeybees are *generally* docile, but will fiercely protect their hives, but I guess with a swarm there's no honey or larvae to protect, so they don't care as much?) Beekeepers can just walk up to a swarm and bump it into a bag. And as much as the bees might be flying about and "bothering" people... that's not on the bees.

(This is assuming a honeybee swarm. Lord only knows what was actually there. People are *astonishingly bad* at telling the difference between bees and wasps.)

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Yes, I'm pretty suspicious of "constituent states there is a beehive in the tree"....

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"Beehive in a tree" summons a picture of one of those globular constructions hanging from a branch, but I don't think honeybees build those. Bees will make a hive inside a tree if there's a big enough cavity in it, but it's not clear that complainant is saying that. A lot of people say "bees" when they're actually talking about hornets or wasps.

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I just want to thank you for using what is probably my all-time favorite bit of internet humor in this report.

Even in my worst moods the combo of people freaking out in tearful joy, and swarming bees, cracks me up. Thanks for being informative AND improving my day.

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