An open door is the only relief to the hot, stuffy classroom where 40 students have a heated discussion. A teacher tries to draw their attention back to the topic at hand. When the teacher finally regains the class’ attention, a bee flies in. The lights are now off. Students are taking shelter under desks. The teacher hides behind a student. They scream whenever the bee comes within three feet of them. A brave student uses a binder to swat the bee out of the classroom. Finally safe from a stinger, the teacher closes the door, wary to allow this chaos ever to enter her classroom again.

Bees terrorized Pali students and staff during the first semester. The bees aren’t simply a minor annoyance at lunch and nutrition. They fly into classrooms, causing chaos and completely derailing lessons.

Beyond being a simple nuisance, bees also have the potential to seriously harm students. School Nurse Stephanie Boyd says that “there are 14 students with documented bee allergies.” While 14 may seem like a small number compared to Pali’s student body of nearly 3,000, many students might not have reported their bee allergy, or even know that they have one, according to Boyd.

It didn’t take long for the administration to step in. However, Director of Operations Don Parcell  explained, “public schools are not allowed to spray anything to get rid of any animals or insects on school campus, so the only thing we could do is try to minimize the food source that attracts them, so we purchased lids for the garbage cans, so they [the bees] have a harder time reaching the food scraps that they’re attracted to.

“It seems to have worked fairly well as nobody is complaining about the bees any more. They seem to be at a normal/typical/acceptable level at this time.”The number of bee reports has seemed to decrease since the lids were purchased in November. At least seven students have reported bee stings this year.

Seemingly, the overwhelming swarm of bees is gone, but the bee problem remains. Although it’s happening less frequently, bees still disrupt classrooms and scare students, students report.