I am a killer. And I make no apologies for that. At least this time I remembered to take a picture.

When vacationing in Europe a few years ago, I noted the absence of screens on the windows and wondered if perhaps Europe didn’t have the same issue with insects that we have in North America. Turns out they do. 

I have a new morning routine. When I get up, which is usually before my wife, I head to the kitchen where we keep the flyswatter. We keep a window open overnight to allow some fresh air into the apartment – but sometimes more than air comes through the screenless windows.

Three times in the past week I have killed early morning intruders in my home office. I’m normally a “live and let live” sort of person, even with insects, but these ones sounded upset and had stingers. I don’t know that they would have the same benign attitude to sharing the space that I do. With no desire to be stung, I decided to be proactive.

I remembered to take a picture of my most recent victim, which appears to be a small honeybee of sorts. My previous victims looked more like hornets, though I must admit I am not an expert when it comes to insect classification. 

Somewhere I think I read that it isn’t good to kill bees, that they are an important part of the ecosystem. I believe that, but I don’t feel guilty.

At 6 a.m. whether it is a bee, a wasp or a hornet, if it is buzzing around my office I’m going to take action. I’m not sure how you incapacitate a bee so that it can be safely removed from the premises. I think maybe there is something you can do with smoke that slows them down, but I don’t want visits from the fire department either.

All of this could be avoided if Europeans put screens on their windows. I still don’t understand why they won’t. So I will go on reducing the European insect population, one swat at a time.