Swarm

SAINT PAUL, Minn. - The Minnesota Swarm defeated the Wings, 15-10, in a National Lacrosse League game at Xcel Energy Stadium Saturday night. The Wings must defeat the Knighthawks in Rochester, N.Y., on Saturday to guarantee home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, which begin the weekend of May 4. Dan Dawson led the Wings (7-8) with five goals and an assist, tying the single-season record of 100 points in a season set by former Wings forward Athan Iannucci in 2008.

The Queen Bee of Mercy Street celebrated Mother's Day in dramatic style yesterday. Her Highness led a honey bee swarm, described by one witness as "a big cloud," down the South Philadelphia street, leaving many residents bee-wildered and trapped in their rowhouses. "It looked like a big cloud in the middle of the street," said Pete Torriero, 23. "It was weird. Never seen anything like that before. Except on TV. " By day's end, some 20,000 to 30,000 bees lay dead on Mercy Street near 11th - the victims of insect spray and hastily thrown water.

The Pirates' gloves and bats failed yesterday, so Pittsburgh resorted to, ah, vacuum cleaners. Huh? About 2 1/2 hours before game time in Pittsburgh last night, hundreds of yellow jackets gathered near the Pirates' dugout. The players tried to swat them away with gloves and even bats. Later, as batting practice was about to begin, a thick swarm of bees gathered on a protective screen behind second base, causing both the Pirates and visiting Colorado Rockies to retreat to their dugouts.

For a while now, Rodger Tabb has been a victim of high expectations. Opponents, realizing how the Cardinal Dougherty center can dominate a game, have assigned two, and sometimes three, players to cover him. As a result, Tabb has had to trade about a pint of sweat for every point, scoring 9.9 per game - not bad for most players, but decidedly unimpressive for a player of his ability. If Tabb were a one-dimensional player or if Dougherty were a one-player team, the double- and triple-teams would be a resounding success.

Police swarmed through Center City west of City Hall today, but it was just a drill. The 90 officers were taking part in a Homeland Security exercise testing rapid response to an emergency such as terrorist attack. Although the beefed up police presence was evident, citizens made their way through the streets unfazed and undisturbed.  

To bee or not to bee? That was the question at Riverfront Stadium yesterday. Phillies batting practice and the first inning were disrupted by a swarm of bees on the field. The trouble started three hours before game time, when the grounds crew began preparing the field. They were rolling the batting cage into place when the queen bee landed on it. Quickly, hundreds of bees swarmed to the cage. Randy Morgan, from the Cincinnati Zoo, was summoned, and got rid of most of the bees with a vacuum cleaner while the Phillies missed 20 minutes of BP. There still were several bees flying around the infield when the game started, though.

When a swarm of unruly bees buzzed down the main street of Norristown last year, the terrified citizens knew who to call - the bee-busters. They are David and Shelley Castetter, a Swedesboro couple who raise bees and sell honey at local grocery and health food stores under the label Valley Forge Honey Farm. But David Castetter is also the man contacted by area police and fire officials when people call them to get rid of swarms in their back yards and garages. "People get really terrified," said Shelley Castetter, 33. "It's very dramatic when it happens, but bees are harmless when they swarm because they're filled with honey.

Each spring, as the sap runs and the nectar flows, beekeepers across the county have their eyes on what for them is one of life's ultimate freebies: free bees. Awakened after a winter of dormancy, bees erupt with a flurry when warmer weather comes. Those workers that survived the winter begin to gather honeydew, which precedes nectar, from flowers, and the queen bee begins her annual egg-laying spree of up to a half-million eggs. But each year, the worker bees take one or more of the queen's eggs, put it in a special elongated cell and feed it something known as "royal jelly," similar to honey but higher in protein.

Germantown Academy girls' basketball fans trying to make the case for including the Patriots in USA Today's top 25 found some additional arguments yesterday. The Patriots, who beat No. 18 St. Elizabeth (Del.) a week ago, used their swarming defense to sink their big Inter-Academic League rival, Notre Dame Academy, 55-31. In suffering only their second loss in 22 games, the Irish were held to just two points in the second quarter by the Patriots, who are ranked No. 1 in Southeastern Pennsylvania by The Inquirer.

This is a tale that is oh so sweet. Upstate farmers might haul in the most awards for stuff like the best- looking cow, the most tantalizing tobacco leaves and the prettiest cucumbers, but at this year's Pennsylvania Farm Show, the Philadelphia suburbs can boast some winners, too. In the highly competitive Apiary Products Category, beekeepers from the burbs walked off with 24 of 108 awards in events such as the Comb Honey (Light) Division and Commercial Beeswax (Not Less Than Three Pounds)

THE FIRST warm days of spring in Philadelphia mean water ice, walks in the park and the wearing of shorts. For a couple hundred rowdy teenagers who took to the street on Chestnut near 15th about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, the warm weather meant a chance for mayhem. Police said the teens flooded the area, several fistfights broke out and 14 people were arrested. Police saw one fight erupt and were attempting to break it up when several of the teens began throwing bottles at officers, officials said.

Strong first and fourth quarters helped the Wings survive the Minnesota Swarm, 15-13, in a National Lacrosse League game Sunday at the Wells Fargo Center. Drew Westervelt and Kevin Crowley collected four goals and four assists apiece as the Wings (6-8) rallied from Saturday night's 14-7 loss at Rochester. Brandon Miller made 37 saves for the East Division Wings. The West Division Swarm fell to 6-8.  

About 400 Philly residents with questions about the city's new property-tax system bombarded a handful of city staffers at a meeting in Germantown Thursday night. "It became a real hostile situation," said Jeffrey Dickerson, a Germantown homeowner. "It's really not good to have a whole bunch of people in one room who don't understand what's going on. " The meeting at Joseph Coleman Library and another in the Northeast were the first "drop-in" meetings the city is holding to answer folks' questions about the Actual Value Initiative, in which the city recently reassessed every property in the city.

GENEVA, Switzerland - The killings took place under a late spring sun. The squads poured into the Syrian village of Houla on foot and in vehicles: cars, minivans, and pickups mounted with machine guns. At the end, more than 100 people were dead - nearly half of them children - in what the United Nations described for the first time Wednesday as a war crime perpetrated by the government forces and shabiha militia backing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. People who tried to remove the bodies were shot at. No one who had survived the massacre fled to a nearby national hospital that was accessible on foot - they knew the army had occupied it for months.

Zac Brown up, not down Who's atop the Billboard 200 albums this week? Why, the Zac Brown Band. Its second CD, Uncaged, debuts at uno with a bearded, burly 234,000 units moved. (Amazon MP3 helped, pricing the CD at $3.99 for a week.) Number 2 is Frank Ocean's CD Channel Orange, with 113K sold, mostly via iTunes. Only about 3K were physical CDs. Hip-hopper Frank jarred the hip-hop world recently when he came out as a gay man. Which may have stoked sales. The rest: (3) Believe, by Justin Bieber, 45K; (4)

Being a good neighbor sometimes means having to get rid of your bees. That's what happened over Memorial Day weekend when Plymouth Township police officers responded to a Sandwood Road home where two bee hives were added late in March, much to the consternation of neighbors. A mass of bees two feet wide and three feet long left hive and home on Saturday May 26th and swarmed in a pine tree next door. Their queen had died, and the swarm took off in search of new digs, said Police Chief Joseph F. Lawrence.

SAINT PAUL, Minn. - The Minnesota Swarm defeated the Wings, 15-10, in a National Lacrosse League game at Xcel Energy Stadium Saturday night. The Wings must defeat the Knighthawks in Rochester, N.Y., on Saturday to guarantee home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, which begin the weekend of May 4. Dan Dawson led the Wings (7-8) with five goals and an assist, tying the single-season record of 100 points in a season set by former Wings forward Athan Iannucci in 2008.

Everywhere around him the accolades are flying, yet somehow, Timber Creek senior linebacker Quanzell Lambert is keeping a steady head about things. The 6-foot-2, 240-pounder has been acknowledged as one of the top high school linebackers in the country, well before he was selected to participate in the inaugural Semper Fidelis All-American game Jan. 3 in Phoenix. College coaches have been lavishing Lambert with praise, hoping he will commit to their school. Yet despite all the attention, the soft-spoken Lambert remains focused on helping his Timber Creek team (4-0)

MAJDAL SHAMS, Golan Heights - Mobilized by calls on Facebook, thousands of Arab protesters marched on Israel's borders with Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza on Sunday in an unprecedented wave of demonstrations, sparking clashes that left at least 15 people dead in an annual Palestinian mourning ritual marking the anniversary of Israel's birth. Hundreds of Palestinians and supporters poured across the Syrian frontier and staged riots, drawing Israeli accusations that Damascus, and its ally Iran, orchestrated the unrest to shift attention from the popular uprising in Syria.