fectly round. In fact, the 3/8-inch diameter was precisely

fectly round. In fact, the 3/8-inch diameter was precisely the size of an electrical, screw-cap connector! These connectors, available at the Cooperative at a cost of seven cents, were cone-shaped, made of durable plastic, and were intended to be screwed as an insulating cap on wires that had been joined and twisted together. I held the cap upside down, and tapped it into the bee-hole. It was a perfect fit.

I filled in all the holes I could find, and smoothed over the one in the window frame with sealer and a coat of white paint. The expert at the Department of Agriculture hadn’t told me whether or not carpenter bees have a sting, but I didn’t really have to worry, because there was only the faintest buzzing coming out nowr from the sealed-up holes.

After my attack, a few bees circled the house and then moved out over the field, like the regular bees of the poem, to “. . . gather honey all the day/ from every opening flower!” When full summer came, the last of the swarm disappeared over the hill.

But I knew the real test of my • seven-cent solution would come one year later. Would the swarm remember our farmhouse, would they find it again? As winter turned to spring, and the events of nature’s calendar occurred on schedule, Julia and I kept an eye on the windows, the verandah and the porch. When everything was dead-quiet, we also listened for that low crunching sound.

Fortunately, I had solved the problem. There were no carpenter bees the next year, and none have come to the house since then. I don’t know where those vicious woodchewers went. I’m sure they had to make a nest somewhere.

Maybe they found an old bam, on government property, somewhere down the road. ,

Dr. Gerald Haivkins is a work; reknoumed astronomer and author, whose books include Stonehenge Decoded and Beyond Stonehenge. He lives outside Woodville. !