PSA: Don’t Kill the Bees

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You think people would know better by now.

I’ll keep it short, but it’s not sweet. In fact, it breaks my heart to write this.

I’ll also keep it simple for people who might have trouble understanding the facts of life. Yes, I’m talking about the birds and the bees — mostly the bees.

Why Bees are Important to Protect

Bees being Moved
This Wikipedia photo by Pollinator shows bees being moved from South Carolina to Maine for blueberry pollination.

The production of food throughout the world relies heavily on pollination, much (if not most) of which is accomplished by bees as they gather pollen and nectar from flowers. Bees are so important for agriculture that it’s common for farmers and orchardists to have bees shipped hundreds of miles to their farms — often at a huge expense — to pollenate crops.

Colony Collapse Disorder

is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, … the syndrome was renamed colony collapse disorder in late 2006 in conjunction with a drastic rise in the number of disappearances of Western honeybee colonies in North America. European beekeepers observed similar phenomena in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and initial reports have also come in from Switzerland and Germany, albeit to a lesser degree while the Northern Ireland Assembly received reports of a decline greater than 50%.

In other words, the world’s bees are dying.

I can’t stress how screwed the world would be if we lost the bees. I can’t even imagine it.

What Stupid People Do

Last night, when I returned home from a great day out with my dog and friends, I had an email message from someone responding to a Craig’s List ad I posted about wanting bees. He was reporting a swarm in Malaga. He’d sent the message at about 5:30 PM. It was now 8 PM, but still light.

I called him about it. He said the swarm was on a piece of scrap lumber only 2 feet off the ground on a lot with a home under construction. It had been there more than 24 hours. It was easy to reach and probably easy to catch.

Although I sorely wanted to capture the swarm myself, I didn’t want to drive the 40 miles (each way) to Malaga. So I called my friend, Jim, and told him about it. I gave him the address and even looked up directions on Google Maps. It would only take him about 15 minutes to get there. He was psyched. He said he’d throw on his shoes and try to get them.

I heard back from his wife about an hour later.

Dead Bees
Dead honey bees.

Jim had found the bees, dead, along with a few cans of Raid.

The bees are dying well enough on their own, but some moron has to go at them with a can of pesticide?

Dozens of beekeepers who live in the area are willing — and eager — to remove a swarm of bees for free, but some idiot has to kill them?

The stupidity of people amazes me.

Don’t Kill the Bees

Please, people, don’t kill the bees.

If you see a swarm, remain calm. Swarming bees are generally not dangerous. They’re just relocating. They’re like you in that big U-Haul truck, parked at a rest stop on the freeway, taking a break.

Call for help.

Your best bet is a beekeeper, if you can find one listed in a local phone book or online for your area. Try Craig’s List; search for “bees” or “swarm.”

The next best bet is the local Humane Society or Animal Control Department of the town or city where you live. They often have contact information for beekeepers.

Next choice: the police, but not 9-1-1. (A bee swarm is not a police emergency.)

Last choice: a pest control company, but with the request that they send someone to remove the bees without killing them. If they won’t do it for free, ask them to find a beekeeper who will. They should have this information handy.

I will concede that if the bees get into the walls of a building or some other place where they can’t be reached, extermination might be necessary. But if you call for help as soon as you see a swarm, you can usually prevent it from getting into that unreachable place and save it.

As the person who contacted me, and my friend Jim tried to do.

What Life is All About

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An amazing, ordinary day.

I had one of those amazing days today. The kind of ordinary day that reminds you just how good life can be.

I slept until 6 AM — late for me — and read in bed until the sun shined right through the window into my eyes. You see, I’d forgotten to lower the shade. But that didn’t matter because no one was going to look in my bedroom window. No one other than the sun.

I had my coffee and tidied around my little home. I prepped for my day in Wenatchee. I had a long list of things I wanted to accomplish and I’d even made notes the night before. I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed when I headed into town.

I loaded up the Jeep and sat Penny on the seat beside mine. We headed out. I got about a mile down the road when I realized I’d forgotten something. I turned around and went back to fetch it. Then we headed out again. I got about 10 miles when I realized I’d forgotten something more important. I turned around and went back to fetch it.

I didn’t mind driving the extra 22 miles because of my bad memory. I wasn’t in a rush. I was doing my own things at my own pace. That was nice.

I drove up to the lot I’m going to buy soon in Malaga. Along the way, I stopped at the lot next door. (The one my husband has photos of that I don’t own and never will.) There were three men working there with a big backhoe. The foundation for my future neighbor’s home was in. They’d chosen a nice building site with nearly the same great view I’d soon have on the lot next to theirs. I chatted with the builder and got his number and the name and number of his girlfriend, who had designed the custom home under construction. I chatted a while with the earth moving guy and talk to him about septic systems and perk tests. I got his card and the number for the septic system designer. It was nice to meet new people, to learn about folks who might help me build my home one day.

On my future lot, I gathered together some of the stakes the owner had used to mark the footprint of the house he’d never build. I took my 100′ tape measure and marked out the footprint for the home I’d build: 48 x 50 feet, right beside the end of the driveway. I marveled at how small that footprint looked on the vast expanse of land I’d soon own.

New FlowerI walked around with Penny, through tall weeds and wildflowers that reached my waist, thinking about where I’d put my beehives and my RV and my septic system. I saw yet another type of flower I’d never seen there before. I admired the view for a while and felt the wind in my hair on a day with perfect weather. I looked back at those stakes and imagined my new home rising above the wildflowers. I imagined sitting on the deck with a glass of wine, taking in the view.

I went down to Wenatchee and had lunch with a friend in a Japanese restaurant where they make a seafood salad just the way I ask. My friend put away an amazing quantity of food. We talked about business and life and what great a gig we had as cherry drying pilots. My friend bought me lunch; I left the tip.

Fresh Honey in the CombI drove over to a friend’s house to tend to my bees, which were living in his backyard. I was inspecting my new hive for the first time. I took my time prepping and suiting up. My friend kept me company and explained what I was seeing while my GoPro camera, set on a tripod, created a 1080p HD video of the entire inspection with our running commentary. Afterwards, I sucked the honey out of the wax comb I’d trimmed from the top of the hive box. No honey tastes as good as the honey you eat fresh, right from your own beehive.

I went to Lowes to look at appliances and cabinets and bathroom fixtures for my new home. I thought about washers and dryers and glass-topped stoves. I looked at refrigerators with drawers and dishwashers that could hold all of my dishes. I talked to a kitchen design consultant and set up an appointment to design my kitchen. I thought about how nice it would be to finally have the kitchen of my dreams — and how nice it was going to be to skip the decision-making ordeal with someone incapable of making a decision.

I ran into a friend of mine and her daughter. We chatted for a while about nothing important.

I stopped at Stans Merry Mart to look at Traeger smokers. The sales guy, who couldn’t have been much older than 18, gave me a thorough rundown on how they worked, what I could make, and how easy they were to clean. I thought about smoking racks of ribs and other yummy food. I came very, very close to buying one, but remembered that my deck wasn’t built yet.

I swung by the spa place to look at hot tubs, but it was late and they’d already closed. Another day. There was no rush.

I went to the supermarket to buy olive oil and flowers and salad fixings.

Drive In FoodAs I headed out of town, I saw the sign for Larry’s Boneless Chicken and decided to give it a try. It was an old-style drive-in restaurant, with girls that came out and took your order and then hung a tray with your food on your car window. The waitress was friendly and happy and smart; the food was good. Penny and I listened to the radio and munched chicken and onion rings.

I drove home in the summer evening light, when the sun was turning that golden color that makes everything look good. I looked at the green hills and the dark brown cliff faces and the blue river and marveled at how beautiful and full of life everything was.

At home, I put away my groceries and watched the video of my hive inspection on a 32-inch HD TV, reliving the highlight of my day, chatting with Facebook friends as I sipped a glass of wine. Outside, the sun was setting. The family of skunks living in the bushes nearby walked past my back window: a mom and six babies. Penny, who was waiting for them, barked.

Penny in BedA while later, I climbed into bed with my laptop to write this blog post. Penny, in her bed with her favorite toy, watched me through sleepy eyes. I thought about how nice it was to spend the day with her and how much she’d love running loose among the wildflowers at our future home.

Just another day in my life. Another great day.

People who go through life angry and hating and trying to take things that aren’t theirs from others who have done them no wrong are missing the point of life. In fact, they’ve missing life itself.

It’s not about what you have and how little you did to get it. It’s not about hating strangers enough to try to make their lives miserable. It’s not about how good you are at screwing over others. It’s not about getting away with lies or abandoning your moral standards to win something that really isn’t yours. It’s not about how much better you are than everyone else. It’s not about your last European vacation or your fancy car or the $150 you dropped on dinner for two the night before.

Life’s about the simple things. The things that make you happy. The things that make you feel whole. The things that are good and right.

Life’s about having a great day, a calm day, a day where you do what matters to you and you enjoy every minute of it.

Adventures in Beekeeping: Tracking Down Swarms

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I accompany friends while they track down three swarms of bees.

James
While I was admiring my new beehive, my friend James was on the phone, taking down information about two swarms he might be able to capture.

On the day I set up my hive in a friend’s yard, he got a call from a fellow beekeeper with two leads on swarms that needed capturing. Within 15 minutes, the two of us were heading north on highway 97 to chase them down.

About Bee Swarms

First, you need to understand that a bee swarm is not a dangerous thing. In fact, bees are least likely to bother people when they’re swarming because they don’t have a hive to protect. They’re on the go, looking for a new home. They’re protecting the queen. When they’re hanging out somewhere, they’re resting and waiting for scout bees to return with news about possible hive sites.

Beekeepers love swarms. Why? Well, because they’re free bees.

All a beekeeper needs to do is go to the swarm with a box and some protective gear, sweep the bees and their queen into the box, cover it up, and go. Back at the apiary, dump the bees into a hive body with frames and voila! A new colony, all set to grow and produce honey.

Or, if the beekeeper doesn’t need another colony, he can let the swarm develop into a colony in a nuc box and sell it to someone who needs bees.

Either way, it’s a win.

The Weeping Cherry Swarm

The first swarm sounded like the good one. It had landed in a weeping cherry tree at a home right off the main road. The tree was reportedly only 7 feet tall. That made it a potentially easy capture.

The only problem is, the call had come in earlier in the day. Much earlier.

We arrived at a nice home at the end of a dirt road. The Columbia River drifted past in the form of the Entiat Reservoir. There were lots of trees but no people. My friend, James, went to find the homeowners while I looked for a buzzing weeping cherry tree, not really knowing what such a tree looked like.

He called out to me a while later. He’d found the homeowner. The swarm had moved on a while before. We’d missed it.

The Chimney Swarm

Bees on a Chimney
I know this is a pretty crappy photo, but take my word for it: there’s a partial swarm of bees on this chimney.

The second swarm was reported up by 25-mile creek on Lake Chelan. A quick check of my map app told me it would take 40 minutes to get there. I called the homeowner while James drove.

The swarm had been inside their chimney. When they discovered the bees, the homeowners had lit a fire in the fireplace to get them out. They’d come out of the chimney and were now on the outside of it in a big mass.

It was a two-story log home.

We arrived after a nice drive through the mountains at a home high above Lake Chelan with magnificent views of the lake and the mountains beyond. We met the homeowners and they pointed out the bees. Sure enough, they were gathered on the side of the chimney, high above us.

Throwing a Rope
Here’s James at the edge of the roof at the front of the house, trying to throw a rope over the peak.

The roof was steep and metal. James and the homeowner put an extension ladder in the back of the truck. James climbed up. He tried to throw a rope over the peak of the house so it could be held or tied on the opposite side to prevent him from falling off the roof when he climbed. There was no way he could climb to the bees without such protection.

Multiple tries from both sides of the house proved unsuccessful. By this time, James had gotten a good look at the bees and was quite certain that it was only part of the swarm and was likely queenless. Not very valuable and not likely to survive much longer.

James tried walking on the slick metal roof. He couldn’t get any traction. He told the homeowners that he was giving up. I thought it was a good idea. Climbing up that steep roof without a rope to support him would be a great way to get himself hurt or killed.

We left empty-handed again.

The Pump House Swarm

Fast-forward two days. The beekeeping group James and I belong to was meeting for their monthly “bee chat” in Leavenworth. One of the members, Steve, lived in Plain, about 16 miles away. He put out an open invitation for members to visit his apiary. James and I went — he on his motorcycle and me in my Jeep.

Steve’s got six hives and is having some trouble with them — mostly, a queen that has stopped laying. He paints his hive bodies in pretty pastel covers and they look nice in his yard, protected from deer and bears by an electric fence. We visited and he showed us some of his feeders and his solution for winter protection. I learned a lot.

He told us he was going to try to pick up a swarm on his way to Leavenworth and invited us to come along. We did. I was even ready to help if needed — I had my bee equipment in my Jeep after tending to my bees at James’s house earlier in the day.

Inside the Pump House
Steve had to scoop bees out of a hole in the building’s ceiling.

The swarm was almost all the way back to Leavenworth. The homeowner met us as we pulled up in our three separate vehicles. The bees, he said, had been hanging around on the outside of the pump house. He pointed to a building near a creek on his property that had bees coming out of the eaves. They’d since moved inside.

Steve went in for a look. James and I peeked, too. There were bees all over the place, but mostly around a big hole in the building’s ceiling.

Steve suited up, grabbed a nuc box with a few frames in it, and went into the building with a ladder. A few minutes later, he was scooping bees out of the ceiling and into the box, hoping to get the queen among the handfuls of bees he moved.

We stayed outside the building. It seemed like the prudent thing to do.

When he was finished, he came outside for a break. He reported that there was something dead in the ceiling. The homeowner said it could be the squirrels who had lived in there and done all the damage.

Outside the Pump House
It was easier to gather bees on the outside of the building.

James got a picking ladder and leaned it on the side of the building. Steve climbed up and started scooping bees from the outside of the building into the box. His goal was to get as many bees as he could.

He also examined the bees in the box to see if they were “fanning.” He explained that when the queen was captured, the other bees would use their wings to spread her scent out where the other bees could smell her. The idea was for everyone to come together where the queen was. He saw some evidence of fanning in thx box and none on the side of the building. That was a good thing.

After a while, he’d done just about all he could. He closed up the box, taped the lid down, and put it in the trunk of his car. As he stripped off his bee suit, he told the homeowner to call him if the bees were still there the next day. He’d come back and try to get the rest of them.

One for Three

The score for the three attempts I’d witnessed this past week was one for three. I don’t think it had anything to do with skill, though. I think it was luck. James had bad luck, Steve had slightly better luck.

In watching two successful swarm captures (including the one last year), I’m pretty confident that I could catch a swarm if it was easily accessible — maybe on a 7-foot weeping cherry tree. I hope to get the opportunity to try soon. Wish me luck!

Bees: Filling My Hive

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I get some bees and begin caring for them.

I started my beekeeping hobby in June 2013 and have been blogging about it periodically. If you’re interested in reading the other posts in this series, follow the Adventures in Beekeeping tag. Keep in mind that the most recent posts always appear first on this blog.

Hives don’t usually come with bees in them and my hive was no exception. It arrived in a series of big cardboard boxes. Each box contained a hive body and ten frames with foundation. Another box included the base, an inner cover, and an outer cover. All I had to do was stack these in the right order and put bees inside the resulting box and I was in business.

As I discussed in a previous post, I got a line on some bees locally from someone who answered a Craig’s List ad I’d placed. I knew very little about bees and felt weird going to pick them up by myself. Fortunately, my friend James, who kindly lent me some real estate to put my hive at his North Wenatchee home, agreed to come along.

Assembling the Hive

But first I had to assemble my hive.

Although I’d bought a traditional hive with two deep hive bodies and two medium hive bodies, I didn’t need the whole thing. When you establish a colony of bees, you give them enough space for the queen to lay eggs and the workers to tend to the brood and start storing honey and pollen. Then, when they’re almost out of room, you add another hive body with more frames.

It’s like waiting until you’ve almost run out of space in your bookshelf to buy and install another bookshelf.

My Hive
My initial hive setup.

I figured I’d set up a deep hive body for brood and a medium for honey. So that’s what I did. It looked very nice on the hive stand James had thoughtfully provided for me. (I guess he didn’t want me using the palette I’d found and rescued in his backyard. I can’t really blame him.)

I should mention here that I had been regretting my purchase of the two deep hive bodies for some time — since reading the book that came with my beekeeping kit, in fact. I read the book on the flight from Seattle to Phoenix and then from Phoenix to Seattle a few days later. I nearly finished it. In it, the author so strongly recommends that beekeepers buy only 8-frame medium hive bodies that she assumes every reader has done so. And although I have yet to meet a beekeeper who is using 8-frame hive bodies, I know quite a few who are using only medium depth hive bodies. I had decided that I ordered the wrong equipment even before I began using it. And I kept wondering how I was going to make the switch in the future.

That’s what I was thinking about as I assembled my hive and prepared to pick up my bees.

Then James got a phone call about two swarms. I went with him to track them down and (hopefully) capture them. More about that in another post.

Picking Up the Nuc

I was buying a nuc or nucleus colony. As I discussed in a previous post, a nuc is a box of bees with a queen already installed, mated, and laying eggs. It’s basically a very small hive. My Vermont beekeeping friend, Tom, says that this is the best way to get bees because all the bees already know the queen and there’s already brood and honey and pollen stored up.

The nuc was in Dreyden, which is about 15 miles from where my bees would live. After James and I finished chasing down swarms, we headed right to Dreyden. I called the seller, Randy, along the way. He’d meet us at the Shell station, which James knew. I told him what we were driving and he told me what he was driving. It was a typical Craig’s List meet.

We got there first and he pulled up next to us a few minutes later. He was a big guy — think horizontal — in blue denim overalls. He told us to follow him. We crossed the main road and got on a narrow drive. A minute or two later, we were pulling into a yard with lots of grass, a garden, a double-wide mobile home, and lots of parked cars and trucks, some of which looked as if they hadn’t moved in a long while.

A Nuc
This is actually the nuc I didn’t take. We’d already loaded the other one into James’s truck when I realized I should have gotten a picture.

The nucs — he had two of them — were sitting on a board on the edge of the property. They were wax-coated cardboard, with a round hole in the front for the bees to come and go. Bees were flying in and out of each of them. Not too many, though — it was getting late.

And this is when I was suddenly glad I’d bought deep hive boxes. You see, the nucs use deep frames. If I only had medium frames in my hive, I wouldn’t be able to use the frames in the nuc. That was James’s situation. He wanted to buy the other nuc because he’d lost a queen in one of his hives but he couldn’t because the frames wouldn’t fit in any of his hive bodies.

Randy and James chatted quite a bit. It seemed they’d met before. James used to work for the cable company and had been to Randy’s house up by Blewett Pass. Randy was a nice guy. Very friendly.

Finally, it was time to do business. Randy asked me which one I wanted. I asked him which one was better. He and James agreed that whichever one was heavier probably had more bees. Randy checked them both. He put the round cap in one of them to close off the entrance and lifted it up. He handed it to James and James handed it to me.

I was holding a 15-20 pound cardboard box containing 5,000 to 10,000 live bees.

Cool.

We tucked the box in the back of James’s truck. I gave Randy a $100 bill. We shook hands. He told me to call him if I had any problems at all. Then we drove back down to Wenatchee.

Putting the Bees in the Hive

Back at James’s house, his neighbor’s son, Seth, came out to greet us. When he realized we had new bees, he asked if he could help.

“Suit up,” James told him.

Seems that Seth, who was maybe 10 or 12 years old, was really into bees. Even though his mom wouldn’t let him get any, she did let him get a bee suit and James let him help out. That was fine with me.

I unwrapped my brand new bee suit and pulled it on over my jeans and tee shirt. I put on the pith helmet and arranged the veil over it. Then I tried to zip the veil to the suit. I couldn’t do it. Neither could James. Neither could Seth — although he told me he had a lot of trouble with his, too. So I just let the veil hang over the neck of my suit and hope that the bees couldn’t find their way in. I put on the long gloves, grabbed my hive tool, and, feeling pretty silly, looked at James and our helper and asked, “Do we need smoke?”

Smoke calms the bees. I had a smoker, but I hadn’t used that either. James told me I wouldn’t need smoke. That was okay with me.

I carried the nuc box into the yard where my empty hive was waiting. James told me to take off the top box because I wouldn’t need it. Just the bottom box to get started. I pulled it off and set it aside. Then I pulled five empty frames out of the middle of the bottom box and set them aside. The five frames in the nuc would go into their places.

The moment of truth had arrived. I took the lid off the nuc box.

There were a lot of bees in there. They didn’t seem too interested in me. The tops of the frames were dirty and they were filled with thick comb. And dark brown goo.

James used my hive tool to scrape off a piece of burr comb on top that was filled with honey. “Your first harvest,” he said, handing me the comb.

I set it aside. I’d suck the honey out later.

Using my hive tool, I tried to pry one of the frames loose from the box. Bees create something called propolis — a dark brown goo — which is like a glue they use to seal up cracks. It’s the main reason a hive tool is necessary. I began prying up one side of a frame and tried to get the other.

The bees didn’t like that. A bunch of them came out and started swarming around my veiled head.

I tried again, but the bees were stressing me.

“Do you want some smoke?” James asked.

“If you think it would help,” I replied.

He and Seth left to get a smoker going. While they were gone, I just stood around, holding my hive tool in one hand, while bees swarmed all around me. I didn’t move my head much; I was afraid they’d find the gap between the veil and my suit and get inside. I was very happy to see them coming back about 5 minutes later. They puffed smoke into the nuc. It seemed to have some affect on the bees. Or maybe on me. I calmed down and got back to work.

One by one I removed the frames from the nuc. I didn’t really look at them, although I suppose I should have. I just wanted to get the job done. It was late and the light was fading.

I got all the frames from the nuc into the space in the hive body, making sure to put them in the same orientation and order so as not to confuse the queen.

Me and my Beehive
Here I am with my beehive. The nuc box and its cover are nearby so the bees remaining in/on them can find their way into the hive. The sugar water looks brown because I use unbleached sugar.

There were lots of bees still in the otherwise empty nuc box and clinging to the box cover. James said to leave them; the bees would find their way into the hive overnight. That was fine with me. Finished, I put the inner and outer covers on my now occupied hive.

One thing left to do: fill the feeder. I’d prepared a 1:1 sugar:water mixture in advance in a jar. I fit the lid of the feeder on the jar, inverted it, and slipped it into one side of the entrance.

I was done.

I posed for a picture, then went back to the truck. I stripped out of my bee suit and my companions did the same. After a bunch of goodbyes, I left. It was just getting dark.

The tiny bit of honey in that burr comb was good.

Two More Visits

I visited the bees — mostly to feed them — on each of the following days.

On Wednesday, I arrived after my meeting with surveyors, lunch, and a lot of divorce bullshit that I wrote about in another blog post. My main reason to visit was to give the bees more sugar water. I got my veil zipped onto my bee suit. I also got my smoker going — although I really didn’t need it. I didn’t need to open the hive. All I needed to do was take the lid off the feeder jar, refill it, and then put it back in place. Bees were coming in and out of the entrance. All looked good.

The bees were mostly out of the nuc box. I shook the last few out and used my hive tool to scrape away the propolis and wax on it. Back at my RV, I’d put the five frames I’d removed into the nuc box for safekeeping. I now had a good place to put a swarm if I had the opportunity to catch one.

On Thursday, I arrived after spending too much time at Hooked On Toys, getting a fishing rod set up for salmon fishing. (Too bad salmon season doesn’t start until July 1!) I’d brought enough sugar water to keep them for two days. This time, I wore the suit — call me a coward — but skipped the smoke.

I didn’t visit them at all on Friday. North Wenatchee is 40 miles from where I’m living right now. Those bees are going to have to learn to fend for themselves. I can’t visit them every day.

I’ll likely visit again this weekend, though, to give them more sugar water. I’ll also use that opportunity to inspect the hive and hopefully add another deep hive body and frames. Later, I’ll add a queen excluder and honey super. I don’t expect to harvest any honey this year — the bees will need it all to get through the winter — but I’m eager to give them what they need to keep the colony growing.

More in another post. Stay tuned!

Why I Made My Tweets Private

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The short explanation: I was tired of being stalked by a paranoid, neurotic, and vindictive old woman.

How To Make Your Tweets Private

Shame on you! You obviously didn’t take my Lynda.com course about Twitter where I explain how to do this. But since you were nice enough to come visit me at my blog, I’ll give you the simple steps here:

  1. Log into Twitter.com.
  2. Go to https://twitter.com/settings/account. This is the Account Settings page for your account.
  3. Turn on the Protect my Tweets check box.
  4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save Changes.
  5. Enter your password if prompted and click OK.

That’s all there is to it. From that point on, the only way someone can see your tweets is if they follow you — and they’ll have to get your approval to do so. While I don’t normally recommend doing this, it’s a good solution if you’d prefer to control who can see your tweets.

I just made my tweets private. It was the only thing I could think of to get my husband’s girlfriend — if you can use that word to refer to a 65-year-old woman — to stop stalking me on Twitter.

How It All Began

It’s been going on since at least November 2012.

Flushing Fish
I think the tweet text makes it pretty clear that the fish was already dead when I tried to flush it.

Back then, while I was cleaning my fish tank’s glass cover, I managed to get a cleaning solution in the water that killed four of the five fish in there. I removed the fish and attempted to flush them down the toilet. Unfortunately, the fish were large and they wouldn’t flush. For some reason, I thought that was funny and took a photo of it, which I shared on Twitter.

Well, my husband’s girlfriend decided that my flushing of a dead fish was evidence that I was destroying my husband’s property — namely, his “exotic” fish. (Nevermind that the fish tank was mine, purchased before marriage, and the dead fish were just tropical fresh-water fish costing about $5 each — if that.) She apparently convinced my husband and his lawyer that they needed an expedited hearing in front of the divorce judge to stop me from doing whatever it is they thought I was doing. They demanded an opportunity to inspect the house and remove his personal possessions so I would stop destroying them. She printed out 25 pages of my tweets — the vast majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with my divorce — and submitted them as “evidence” of my wrongdoing.

This is when I realized a few things:

  • My husband’s girlfriend was in charge of my husband’s side of the divorce. It all came from her; I had confirmation of that later by means I’ve promised not to disclose. My husband certainly didn’t read my tweets (or my blog) and he knew the fish were mine.
  • My husband’s girlfriend was paranoid, neurotic, and likely as delusional as my husband had become. What else could I think? She read a tweet about a fish being flushed and decided it was evidence that I was destroying my husband’s property. Seriously: WTF?
  • My husband’s lawyer was not giving them sound advice — or, if he was, they weren’t taking it. After all, if he’d read the 25 pages of tweets, he’d clearly see that there was nothing in there to indicate that I was destroying anything belonging to my husband. They’d simply look like idiots in front of the judge.

This kind of backfired on them — as so many of their court actions did. My husband was given a date and time to come to our house and retrieve any of his possessions that he was worried about. That meant moving a lot of crap out of the house that he would probably have preferred leaving right there. It also prevented him from accessing the house later, as he tried in May, because he’d already used up his only court-approved opportunity to remove possessions. Oops.

You think she’d learn her lesson. A smart person would. But no: she continued to watch my tweets and attempt to use them to harass me throughout the months the divorce process dragged on.

Show Me Your Weakness and I’ll Exploit It

I have to admit that once I knew she was reading my tweets, it was difficult not to taunt her. She had no life — that was clear — why else would she be so obsessed with what I was tweeting about? Despite my heartbreak over losing the man I’d loved for more than half my life, I had a great life and I tweeted every detail.

I didn’t work much throughout the winter and spring and I traveled a lot, making multiple trips to California, Florida, Las Vegas, and Washington. I shopped for a whole new wardrobe after losing 45 pounds the previous summer. I met new people home and away and did all kinds of things with them. When I was home, I had a steady stream of house guests in the house they supposedly couldn’t wait to get back into. They’d insisted on dragging the divorce on past the original January trial date by asking for a continuance — I made the best of the situation by having a great time while I was stuck there. I tweeted all winter and spring about my activities, making sure I mentioned every fun thing I was doing, knowing just how much it would get under her skin.

A normal person would have stopped reading the tweets. But she’s not normal. She’s obsessed. I accused her in January of living vicariously through my tweets. She read that one, too — I saw it later as “evidence” in court.

She was stuck with my sad sack husband, directing his divorce because he lacked the balls — or moral integrity — to do it himself. I was enjoying real freedom for the first time in nearly 30 years, doing whatever I wanted without having to look at his sour, disapproving face.

And, of course, I packed.

More Tweets in January

The tweets came up again in January when she attempted to get an Injunction Against Harassment on me. I fought it in court. More tweets submitted as “evidence.” I don’t even think the judge looked at them. Why should he? Pages and pages of my usual blather — those who follow me on Twitter know what I tweet about — all copied in triplicate as “exhibits” for the court. I could only imagine what those photocopies cost — law firms charge through the nose for everything!

They showed up with their lawyer. Three of them against me. I won. They had no case.

Another court action backfires on them. Another few thousand dollars wasted fighting the phantoms of her delusions.

The Ceiling Fans

Ceiling Fan Tweet
I really couldn’t resist. Note that I didn’t say here that I removed the ceiling fans; I just insinuated that I did.

When the divorce trial was finally over the other day, I admit I did send one last tweet intended for her consumption, one last thing to really piss her off. The ceiling fan tweet.

During personal property negotiations, she’d listed the ceiling fans as something I must leave behind. I still remember the discussion my lawyer’s assistant and I had about this demand. It went something like this:

Me: She thinks I’m going to take down the ceiling fans?

Her: Apparently so.

Me: Why the hell would I do that? They came with the house. What the hell am I going to do with six southwest style ceiling fans in Washington state?

Her: She’s just trying to get under your skin.

Me: All she’s doing is showing how stupid and petty she is. I don’t want the damn fans.

Of course, she also demanded the curtain rods. But in the final agreement, the curtain rods went to me. I took them, with the curtains — admittedly, mostly for spite, although the ones in the living room and guest room (which were the only ones I really wanted) will look nice in my new home. And although the ceiling fans were not on the list of the items they could keep — after all, I considered them part of the house — I didn’t take them. I just tweeted as if I might have. The ceiling fans had become a running joke with my Twitter and Facebook friends and I knew they’d enjoy the tweet.

Because my husband had refused to inspect the house with me present, it would be at least 36 hours before they could get in to see what I’d left behind. I’m sure her blood pressure was red-lining the whole time, thinking about those ceiling fans.

Sadly, she didn’t stroke out.

It’s Over. Really.

In my mind, the divorce was over. Everything was in the hands of the judge. We’d settled the personal property and I had come away with everything that was mine and the joint property that I wanted, leaving behind far more for them than I’d taken for myself. (My lawyer’s assistant thinks I gave too much away.) I had finally moved out of my house. I was back in Washington, living where I’d spent the previous five summers, working, playing, having a life.

My husband’s girlfriend, however, wasn’t finished with me yet. She just couldn’t let go. She just couldn’t stop harassing me. I guess that when you spend so many months catering to an obsession, it’s hard to call it quits.

I blogged about the latest hilarity here. No need to repeat the details in this post.

It does, however, all come down to tweets. She built her delusion about my ownership of property in Washington on her interpretation of my tweets. Apparently, plain English isn’t good enough for her. In her paranoid mind, she believes everything I’ve written contains a coded message. She reads my tweets and interprets the code she believes they contain. The result: “facts” to feed her delusions.

(A mutual friend of mine and my husband’s can’t wait to meet her. She’s an amateur psychologist and thinks she’ll have a lot of fun trying to figure her out. I’m looking forward to her report.)

Although I made it clear in a recent email to a bunch of people that I think her obsession with my tweets is evidence that she’s sick, I seriously doubt whether that’s enough to stop her from obsessing. And frankly, I don’t want every little thing I tweet about to feed her delusions and get her running to her lawyer to bother mine.

It’s over. I’m free. I shouldn’t have to deal with her crap anymore. Hell, I shouldn’t have had to deal with it in the first place — and I wouldn’t have if my husband was smart enough (or man enough) to rein her in. The only way to break her of the obsession is to take the object of her obsession away from her.

So my tweets have become private, at least for now.