Foliage

And in the fall they get very busy, and are especially attracted to high places.
I’ve been to Silver Dollar City when they had to post notices and actually shut down coasters and other high rides until the bees went on break.

I've discovered that they for the most part leave you alone as they are more interested in the sucrose than they are humans. Last October the self service pop machines under the north sky ride station was like a waterless form of catfish noodling, but even then they left me alone. In fact, after four days of waving them off our food and checking the inside of our beer cups before taking a sip the only time I got stung was when I was sitting on Skyhawk minding my own business waiting for the cycle to start; just out of nowhere one lands on my hand and bites me for no good reason at all.

To echo Kevin's point though I cant remember any excessive numbers in almost as many years of visiting, save for these last two or three; the correlation with the increased pop consumption (and points of sale) in that same span is an interesting one.

Right? I certainly didn't mean I've never crossed paths with a bee at Cedar Point, just nary an encounter that I would classify as "special".

I feel like I see more bee activity in my backyard than I do at Cedar Point.

RCMAC said:

And in the fall they get very busy, and are especially attracted to high places.
I’ve been to Silver Dollar City when they had to post notices and actually shut down coasters and other high rides until the bees went on break.

Wait, bees have a union?

For me the worst yellow jacket encounters I had at CP were at Back Beat last year late summer/fall and I will say they were pretty bad. I know that's the time of year where they're trying to get protein for nesting or whatever. But it was rough. I don't blame the park or anything but it was hard to find an area where they wouldn't be all over me, the food, etc., and I don't drink pop. I didn't get stung or anything but I'm honestly surprised I didn't.

I think the worst encounter we've had with stingy-insects is Dollywood, more specifically at DreamMore. We were seated outside at the bar, and we noticed a lot of activity swarming about and divebombing us. They weren't aggressive, just curious. None of us got stung, but we noticed the number kept increasing, and we watched them landing and crawling into a little hole behind the siding at the window. We were seated at their front door, and they were coming home for the evening. It felt like we were under attack, but nothing bad came of it. They moved us and it was fine.

Don't get me started on the time the European Hornets decided that a corner piece of my siding was a good home a few years ago. They infested the entire column from the gutter to the bottom - if you know anything about those, they're the next size down from the "murder hornets", and they're head and legs are red. They're attracted to light, so they were bouncing off our windows at night and you could hear the buzzing through the walls. It took the exterminator 3 visits to knock it out, but not before one of them got into the house and I took it out with a baseball bat. it still makes me shudder.

Took it out with a baseball bat (along with a lamp, a mirror, and a window)

We don't talk about the fallout from that incident. The hornet is dead and that's all that matters.

We don't talk about hornets, no no no

We don't talk about hornets

BUT

Got my first Magnum ride of the season today and noticed they trimmed the trees along the exit ramp all the way back to the trunks. Not much foliage left there. Didn't get a picture, looks like a halloweekends decoration right now. Hopefully the plan is to let them regrow.

I think they do that every year. .

They've chopped those trees back like that several times. Not sure about every year, but it's been done before and they do actually come back.

Dvo said:

Let's just hope that CP's RMC doesn't go the path of Dollywood's...

If Dollywood had built a hybrid RMC with a standard lift hill and the same terrain layout, it would have been a great coaster with few problems.

But they chose the marketing gimmick of a launched wood coaster and got a low capacity maintenance nightmare.

I think the majority of customers rather have had a regular lift hill RMC that actually operated consistently with 2 trains instead of that

Kevinj said:

In 45 years of visiting cedar point, I don't have one memory of an encounter with a yellow jacket, or any problem with "yellow jacket season". I mean, I don't remember those first 5 years (hippocampus wasn't really mature yet), but is that a thing?

They are terrible, especially in the backstage areas where the dumpsters are. I don't even bother trying to eat in one of the outdoor break areas because of it. Fall is by far the worst time for them, as theu want meat and protein, but it would be nice to see Cedar Point take some steps to try and control them. Bees are fine, but the yellow jackets need to go, lol.

If Dollywood had built a hybrid RMC with a standard lift hill and the same terrain layout, it would have been a great coaster with few problems.

Is it designed to be able to operate with a standard lift if they wanted it to? Probably a bit slower through the course but it could work.

I’m late to the foliage debate, but I personally think that both sides have a good point: Although it looks like CP preserved several trees surrounding the new restaurant, I still question why the park couldn’t have it somewhere else without as many mature trees.

I also agree that CP could be better about planting new trees—particularly shade trees. For example, has the park planted anything in the planter within Corkscrew’s turnaround yet? It was painful watching the big tree that was previously there die over several seasons.