Bee Stories 

Inspired by this Lileks post about his run in with a wasp nest... I've decided to share some bee stories of my own (and one really good one from a coworker) that I've accumulated over the years. First of all I should say this... bees (and when I say bees I mean all members of the flying-stinging family) and I aren't friends... as you'll soon understand.

The most painful story I have comes from early childhood when my sister Sarah cajoled me into helping her wash our Mom's car. For some unknown reason a yellow jacket (I think) shot out of a bush and stung me behind my ear. For those of you who are unfamiliar, take a moment and press your finger against the soft spot right behind your ear. That's your auditory nerve. Now imagine a needle being pushed into it. Enough said.

A couple years later I was walking next to our house and noticed some bees flying through a hole in the top of the stucco wall. As it turns out, upon opening the garage, we could see bees flying every now and then in and out of the pegboard holes that lined the inside of the garage wall. Not only were bees coming out of the holes, but we had honey oozing out of some of the others. We ended up hiring a bee keeper who came to the house, took down the pegboard, smoked em till they were totally stoned, and scraped them into a box, then vacuumed up the rest. If you've never seen a wall covered in oozing honey, it's kind of cool.

Then there's the time I was mowing my neighbor's lawn. As a small aside, "men mow the lawn"... we don't "cut the grass". Please take note of that ladies. Anyway, he had a small stone wall next to his lawn where some yellow jackets decided to nest. As it turns out they don't like lawn mowers... go figure. The story ends with about 6 yellow jackets hanging from my shirt trying to sting through it as I'm running away from the swarm, jumping a hedge, trying to brush them off of me at the same time. I should have joined the track team after that one.

A coworker happened to share a story a couple weeks ago. As he tells it, he was in his garage when he saw a bee land on a wall. Having a hammer in his hand, he did what any sensible guy would do, he hit the bee with the hammer, putting a hole in the wall. At that point the wall began to vibrate, and a he heard sounds something like a jet engine preparing for take off. Then bees shot out of the newly formed hole in the wall like bullets out of a gun. Once again, being the sensible guy that he is, he ran like billy hell. He came up with a very creative solution to his problem too. He came back later that night with a big ole thing of caulk, and caulked up every hole in the wall, including the new one he created, and the others the bees used to get in the wall in the first place. So now he has a wall full of by now dead bees.