Bee poop sticks to cars but can be removed. Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Bee poop sticks to cars but can be removed. Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
This week's WatDat comes from our own Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin photographer. "A real pain for car buffs!" says he. "These yellow spots show up as soon as you polish or wax your car. I swear the critters that do this love to target white. What are they?"Well, Ken, the good news is that it's none of your beeswax. The bad news is - it's bee poop.
"When a bee gotta go, he gotta go," explained George Holeso, president of the Hawaii Beekeepers Association. "Sometimes a bee sees a better pollen sources and dumps what's he's carrying in mid-air to make room for the good stuff. Or they hit turbulence and jettison their load."
Bombs away! The bee poop is just like beeswax, but concentrated, said Holeso. It's also used to help mark bee turf. If a car or boat is parked along a regular bee flight path - or interrupts a bee flight path - it can be nailed, said beekeeper Herbert Ing. Wrong place at the wrong time. White cars aren't pooped upon any more than any other surface, it's just that the translucent yellow spots are highlighted on the white, said Ing.
The bee poop won't harm the car's finish, said McKinley Car Wash honcho Yukio Yoshikawa, but it's difficult to remove.
"You just gotta work at it with your nail or something. Some people damage their finish by scratching it off or rubbing too hard."
A good percentage of car-wash labor this summer is going for rubbing off bee poop, according to Yoshikawa.