My next blog was supposed to discuss my North Africa trip in more detail, but a more interesting and pressing topic has come up. I'm now back home in California for the summer. When I came home, to my surprise, I learned from my parents that we had a bee hive atop our living room chimney. The bees starting trickling into our house about a week ago. They would come down the chimney and go to the nearest window, where they would shortly die. Recently, I discovered a second hive in a hole in the wall on the outside of our house, near the second chimney. In fact, I can see these bees from my room.
We called a bee exterminator in to assess the situation. The exterminator killed the first bee hive by spraying a chemical from the roof. Next he used a laser gun / thermometer to detect the location of the second hive. The hive could be found from our master bedroom's bathroom - a temperature of 85 degrees could be detected at certain places in the wall (whereas 77 degrees at other parts of the while were normal).
This second hive is still operating, and we are deciding what to do about it. I suspect that this bee hive has been there for a few years. We are reluctant to exterminate the bees because, quite simply, they are not harming anyone. When the exterminator killed the first hive, he may have killed 3000 bees or more. This was hard to bear. The second hive may have 15,000 - 20,000 bees. We were hoping that the bee professional would bring a second hive and entice the bees to enter the new hive. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Also, when the hive is exterminated, the chemicals contaminate the honey. On the other hand, we don't want the bees to somehow burst into the house. We also don't want the bees to attract hornets, which are known to kill bees and steal their larvae. Another strategy is to leave the bees alone for now, and close the hive in the Fall when the weather cools down.
As luck would have it, the exterminators also found a small hornet's nest in a nearby overhang, which we ripped down. Apparently, the wasp problem is expected to grow in June when the weather becomes hotter. Our bee problem lead to my spending countless hours on YouTube learning about bees. This of course lead to watching videos on wasps, and then videos on lions vs. tigers, lions vs. hyenas, etc.
What do you think we should do about the second hive?
We spent 5 days in Casablanca on the trip, more than we anticipated. Most people I spoke to before the trip recommended spending less than 2 days in Casablanca because the city lacks historical sights, aside from the Hassan II mosque, the largest mosque in Africa. However, I enjoyed the cosmopolitan nature of Casablanca, as well as its cooler weather. The city houses countless cafes, restaurants, and clubs; it is the New York of Morocco. While we visited a few great Moroccan restaurants, namely Riad Zitoun, my favorite restaurant was Pomme de Pain, a sandwich chain that sold fantastic pesto, tomato, and mozzarella sandwiches. We also spent 1 night out on the town, going out on Ain Diab. We spent the majority of the night at Armstrong's cafe, and even met the band that performed that night. We arrived on a day when Casablanca's two football teams had played for the championship, so there were numerous fans roaming the streets. I guess Morocco is pretty football crazy, although fan excitement didn't achieve super levels because Morocco didn't qualify for the world cup. That honor goes to neighboring Algeria.
During one of our days in Casablanca, we took a day trip to Rabat, the capital of Morocco. Rabat is just 1 hour north of Casablanca by train. We visited Roman ruins at Rabat, and walked through the older part of the town. We also toured Rabat's fort, after which we went down to the beach to go surfing. We rented surf boards and surfed for a few hours, although I wasn't able to get up on the board (Neil got up once). On the way back to the train station, we stopped for mint tea at a cafe, and met 3 footballers who played for Morocco. Eventually I got a picture with them.
