The anchorages in the Sea of Cortez vary greatly from one another. Some have excellent reefs for fishing and snorkeling, others have terrific seashell beaches, and you never seem to see the same rock formations twice. We’ve seen precious few onshore crittes – turkey vultures, osprey, insects and small lizards, mostly – but we never expected to encounter swarms of bees invading the boat. These are not the dreaded killer bees in the Sea of Cortez – as far as we know. But in certain anchorages, at certain times, bees will come and you’d best be prepared.
We have had only two visits from bees so far. We were swarmed by a couple hundred bees when we anchored at Bahia de Cazadero on the west side of Isla San Jose, some 60 miles north of La Paz, on an early afternoon in late March 26. These were docile bees that did not sting or get all up in our business, but were simply very, very thirsty having survived 8 years of drought in Baja. They seemed to be desperately searching for any source of fresh water, however small. In the several minutes it took us to anchor and put up the bug screens on all our hatches and portholes, about a hundred bees had swarmed inside our cabin but were concentrated at the fresh water faucets and drains in the galley and shower compartment, and on any other drop of fresh water they could find. We unfortunately had to kill about 50 of the bees who did not leave the cabin of their own accord – but the swarm moved on after about 40 minutes without attacking us or building a hive anywhere or taking over our brains. Interestingly, these bees were very slow moving, peaceful hippie-type bees and were – sadly – easy to kill.
Our second bee encounter was in late morning/early afternoon in early April in Puerto Ballandra on Isla Carmen, about 65 miles further north up the Sea. We had heard another boat on VHF 16 "warn" travelers that bees had covered his deck in the morning, to drink the dew that had formed there overnight – so we already had all our bug screens deployed when we arrived. The bees were far fewer in number, and stayed out of the cabin – though when we rinsed our wetsuits with fresh water in the cockpit after snorkeling, a few dozen bees helped themselves to the puddles of fresh water on the lazarette surfaces and even crawled down into the cockpit drains to take a drink.
Based on our experiences and what Sea of Cortez veterans have told us on the issue, here are some tips for reducing and maybe eliminating thirsty bees swarming a boat, whether you find yourself in the Sea of Cortez or elsewhere: (1) Immediately kill the one or 2 scout bees that arrive to sniff out your boat’s fresh water puddles, so that they won’t fly home and tell their 1000 cousins. (2) Keep your dishes and cups clean, washed and stowed. (3) Keep the countertops in your galley and head dry. (4) Rinse your topsides with salt water once or twice per day – a good idea anyway for folks like us with teak decks. We also saw a swarm of non-killer bees colonize the inside of a mast in Mazatlan last December – so our final piece of advice is, take your boat out every so often – and if you see a few bees hovering around the top of your mast, run your halyards up and down a few times so that they don’t believe your mast is a quiet, stable home.
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