Bees!

I was going to do a serious post today, but there has been so much "B-love" expressed in blogworld lately I decided to share my B-story instead. Have a great weekend folks!!!


I stay calm around bees because my grandpa told me bees don’t want to sting you. If you stay calm and leave them alone, they will leave you alone. It works pretty well. I was good at the “calm” part, but once in a while I seemed to have trouble leaving them alone.

One of the most painful incidents was made worse because of who witnessed it—the cute, young mom next door. Her house was at the top of the hill between my house and my grandmother’s. I was 15, she was 26. Anyway, weeds were growing out of the sandstones piled along our dirt road across from my grandma’s store. The weeds scratched against my dad’s car and he wanted me to trim them using our whip—you swing it like a golf club, it has a blade on the end.

I started the job one afternoon after school. As I walked up the hill I noticed my neighbor was on her porch. She waved and said hi, I tried to look cool--I had a little crush on her. I started cutting weeds at the bottom of the hill on the other side and worked my way back towards my neighbor...I mean my house! Soon I was half-way up the hill. I could see the top of her house, but I couldn’t see the porch yet because of the hill. I was not playing full attention to what I was doing. I didn’t think anything about the few bees I saw—bees were common in my neighborhood. I didn’t notice they were ground bees (yellow jackets). It never occurred to me there might be a nest in the rocks. I just kept swinging!

Before I knew it, I heard the unmistakable sound of many bees taking flight. One stung my arm and a few got under my shirt. Here's how my neighbor described (the next day) what she saw happen.

Her: What happened to you yesterday? I heard you yell and then I saw your whip fly up in the air over the top of the hill. Then I saw your shirt fly up in the air….and then you came running up over the hill waving your arms all around your head. It looked like you had gone crazy!!!
Me: Umm, I found a bee’s nest and they found me.
Her: ahahahahahaha!!!! Oh, I’m sorry, I hope you’re okay. But you just looked ridiculous!
Me: {dejected}

What hurt more, getting stung 5 times or looking like an idiot in front of miss cute (well, mrs. cute)? Definitely getting stung hurt more!!! But both were caused by stupid bees. BEEEEEEEESSSS!!!!! Argh!

Bonus Story – In case you have nothing else to do at the moment.
The first time I was stung by a bee I deserved it--and I was punished horribly! I was sitting under trees next to our driveway—I was 6 or 7. I noticed the birdhouse in one of the trees had been taken over by bees. I had been playing with an old, broken toy train car and I wondered if I could throw it and hit the birdhouse from where I was sitting. I nailed it. I was so proud…until I saw the bees rushing out of the bird house! I ran, but not fast enough—if only I had been wearing magic sneakers. LOL! I was lucky to only be stung once, but it was in a bad place. A private place. The place where a teacher would have gone to jail if he touched me there. It was horrible and all my own fault! My grandpa shared his wisdom while I was recovering from the painful, painful swelling. I do my best to LEAVE BEES ALONE!!!

Do you remember the first time you were stung???