Eating Outside Is Awesome In Minnesota – Until the Bees Arrive
One of the best things about Minnesota Summers is that they turn into Minnesota Septembers, when the temperature moderates and we’re excited to be outside, especially using restaurant sidewalk and patio seating.
But then the bees arrive. Or really, bugs of any kind.
Sunday morning my friends Courtney and Nathan met me for breakfast at the Canadian Honker, across from St Mary’s in Rochester. The breakfast was great, the service was great, but the bees were not so great.
Bees were flying all over our food, touching it with their filthy little fingers. Or legs. Legs? Let me look that up, hang out… (gone for a few seconds)
The honey bee has three pairs of legs which split into six segments, making them very flexible. The front legs are specially designed to clean the antennae, while the rear legs have a section devoted to pollen accumulation called a pollen basket.
Each leg has claws for gripping and sticky pads to assist the bee in landing on slick surfaces. Bees also have taste receptors on the tips of their legs. From The Perfect Bee
Legs. And they have taste receptors in legs? That would be wild for humans. Can you even imagine what your flip-flop tastes like? ((shudder))
Anyway, we wanted to get the bees away from the food, so we set our jams (I think home-made, not sure) out at the edge of the table and voom! They flew right to the jam and away from our food.
We thought, what if we move the jam even further away? Like to the tree near us?
Meh. Not as many bees as I’d hoped. I guess the sweet source needs to be larger to attract the bees from the tables.
The Eating Outside In Minnesota Life Hack
So here’s the hack: If you’re dining outside, and the bees or the bugs are getting to you, put a bit of something sweet at edge of the table. The bees’ll congregate there.
I was at the Honker with Nathan a few weeks ago, and there were no breakfast bugs. Also, Michelle was our server and she was excellent…everyone was. We had to wait for an outdoor table, and every time Nathan (who was near the Honker main entrance) opened the door for an employee, they gave big, hearty thank yous.
Do you have any suggestions for keeping the bugs away when you dine outside? If you’re allergic to insect bites, what do you do?
As always, if you have a comment, complaint, or concern about something I wrote here, please let me know: james.rabe@townsquaremedia.com
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