Well, I think I know where all the bees went – they're headed to Sturgis, South Dakota.
The reason I think this is because, after nearly an entire spring without seeing one bee, I witnessed a most peculiar scenario involving hundreds of honeybees and a funky hive they were building.
I was tending afternoon bar at Winston's Beach Club in Ocean Beach when a guy parked his motorcycle a few feet from the front door. About 20 minutes after he parked, a swarm of honeybees started gathering on his bike.
They began to form a hive at the top of the front wheel forks. I didn't see it at first but the doorman came inside the bar and said, "Come check this out," so I went outside to see a mass of bees squirming and undulating on the front end of the motorcycle while several hundred more flew around the area, coming and going and acting as though nothing strange was going on.
I'd never seen anything like it. Nor, I gather, had anyone else because a crowd had formed and we were all oohing and ahhing and marveling at the sight of the biker bees.
Then it hit me: Why would bees want to set up shop on a motorcycle? To hitch a ride to Sturgis of course. They're going to attend the annual motorcycle rally they have every year called Bike Week. That's probably where the rest of them are too!
Mystery solved.
Anyway, by the time the guy came back outside, he walked around the bike to assess the problem. Then we all had a group discussion about his options. I recommended calling an exterminator, which received many jeers from the crowd ( I guess because we need all the bees we can get these days). Somebody else suggested he start the engine and let it idle until the bike got too hot and/or loud for them to tolerate.
So the biker started the motor, and let it run for a while, and those sumbitch bees did not budge. They were like, "Fuck that noise – Sturgis or bust!" So that crazy biker bastard, you know what he did? He got on his motorcycle – bees swarming around his head and face and a full-blown beehive a mere inches from his legs – and drove off in a cloud of wings and stingers. Now that's what I call punk!
Images by Steve Covault 