Bees

So, I got stung by a bee last Monday – first time in years. Interestingly, it was not around my house by one of the bees that keep trying to build nests on my roof or around my windows. It was not while I was off hiking through the fields. It was on my transit. Or, rather, inside my transit.

There was not just one bee inside the transit. There were many. One moment, it was a normal, cramped, smelly ride. Suddenly, a scream came from on top of the vehicle, and the driver stopped. “Uh, I think we have a bee problem,” my sitemate pointed out to me (I was just starting to drift off). Sure enough, bees everywhere. People screaming and swatting at the air (I might add there were not so many bees as to induce total hysteria). Apparently, someone was transporting a hive on the top of the transit, and it had somehow come open.

At no point did it occur to anyone to open the back door to the transit to let the wind simply blow the bees out. And, I had previously learned that, as dirty as flies are, Berbers think it is even dirtier to kill them (go figure). Apparently, the same rule applies to bees. Of course I worry a little about good karma and all that, but I let all that go when one little guy stung me through two layers of clothes while my sitemate was picking another one out of my hair. So as I started pounding away at any creature that got near a hard surface (i.e. not my body), everyone else was attempting to implement a catch-and-release technique using hats, etc. (still, no one had opened the back door to try the wind tunnel approach). Bees were crawling all over everyone, and few of us escaped their evil pursuits. One poor guy (maybe the one who had been riding on top with the bees) had stings all over his head.

But the local honey sure tastes good!