Bees!

And when I say bees, I mean LOTS of bees!

We found out Sunday morning that we had a HUGE cluster of bees living on one of our trees in our front yard.  Yes, on.  This specific tree is a young fellow, which broke and fell over after one of the stakes snapped (not sure how that happened either), but has since come back to life with many trunks.  We still have yet to get around to pruning it.......

But back to the bees!

Do you see them all clustered on top of each other?  This was only a small section of them.  This was the bottom, and it was a lot longer, maybe 3 times as long, and even wider than this in the middle.  I can't even begin to guess how many bees there were in our tree.  Thankfully none were flying around, that we could see.  But ICK!  I do not want millions of bees living in my front yard.  No thank you.

Mind you, this was a Sunday.  And the next day was Labor Day, a holiday.  So I left a message for our normal pest control people, in case they had an someone on call or something.  And then I Googled bee removal people in our area and found one that seemed like they knew what they were doing, and they had emergency removal, as in during nights and weekends.  So I gave them a call and talked to a guy, and my first question was how much do you charge for removal.  And his answer was... long.  He began to tell me what they would do to get rid of the bees and to take extra care in making sure they don't come back, and about all these different [apparently safe] chemicals and procedures to extinguish them.  After his long explanation he said it would cost about $500.  WHAT?!  Well, no.  We told him we'd call him back.  We wanted a second opinion, and one we could trust!

Well I called my dad and he told me some things, including that sometimes bees will live in a temporary cluster around the queen when they are in the process of moving from one place to another, and also that they usually will find residence in somewhere protected, like an abandoned couch or an exterior house wall, not likely in a young tree with flimsy limbs.  So we included this situation about the bees in our prayers that night, that they might just be a temporary cluster and go away on their own, or that we would know what to do to get rid of them at a reasonable cost, and how to handle it in the right time frame.  And we went to bed.

And when we got up in the morning, the bees were still there.  :(  I called a guy my parents know who does exterminating and left a message for him.  But then we left for Phoenix for a baseball game and didn't think about it.  And when we got home and pulled up to our house, we peered deep into the contents of the tree to try to see if we could see any bees in it (it's a very leafy and un-pruned tree) and to our surprise, disbelief, and GREAT JOY...  

They had gone!  No more bees!  Not a single one!  None!  Not a trace!!!

Hallelujah!  I was just about jumping for joy in my seat!

Of course we thanked our Father in Heaven that night, for our safety in this situation and that we didn't have to spend anymore money and that the whole thing just resolved itself, and without any incident (that we know of).  I know it's kind of a small thing, but we really were blessed.  Maybe it's a little silly, but it's just another thing that adds to my testimony that God lives and He knows me and my family and loves us and helps us through this journey of our life on Earth.  This circumstance may have been insignificant compared to a lot of other things, but it mattered to us, and so it mattered to Him.  And that's the best part.  I know I matter to Him.  And that makes me love Him even more!  It's like any relationship, when you show someone that they matter to you, it makes them appreciate you and then they return the favor and from there it's just an upward spiral and a positive chain of actions.

We matter.  Our prayers are heard.  Our prayers are answered, not always in the way or time that we want or expect, but they are answered.  We are loved, beyond any measure we can imagine!

"My dear brothers and sisters, it may be true that man is nothing in comparison to the greatness of the universe. At times we may even feel insignificant, invisible, alone, or forgotten. But always remember—you matter to Him! ... 

"Brothers and sisters, the most powerful Being in the universe is the Father of your spirit. He knows you. He loves you with a perfect love. 

"God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him."

- Dieter F Uchtdorf