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July 23, 2004 This article is dedicated to my fellow writer, Ken Hughes, who was kind enough to e-mail me about my article of July 14 titled, "Profit." Ken, the “critters” in this article had to go! (okay, technically they aren’t on the endangered species list, but, even if they were…..this was war!) We try really hard in our household to be environmentally correct. Alan and I, plus the four cats and the dog who have chosen to live with us, are environmentally conscious. We recycle, separating plastics, glass, metal cans and such, from the other trash. Okay, the cats and the dog don’t actually do the recycling but they, uh, supervise. Anyway, we are dedicated to helping the environment as much as possible. We use only safe products to keep mosquitoes and bugs away from our plants and lawn and will not buy products that can impose dangerous health hazards to any creatures of nature. Ah, nature! Our backyard hummed with its sounds. Birds chirping, doves cooing to each other, and squirrels making, um…, squirrel sounds. Hovering just underneath it all was the gentle buzzing sound of the bees who had chosen our backyard to build their hive. Alan and I watched them flit from flower to flower in our garden nourishing themselves and pollinating all at the same time! What wonderful creatures, we said smiling. (Hang on to this Pollyanna thought as you read further.) “Ouch! You rotten little......!” I was in the kitchen when I heard Alan curse. He was “doing things” in the garden and I figured he had done what he usually did when “doing things” in the backyard: cut his hand, jammed his finger, hurt his back, his knee, etc., etc. So, like a good wife, I went to see what he’d done this time. “Honey? What did you do this…., I mean, what happened? Are you okay?” He was standing with his back to me, holding his right hand up to his mouth. Probably cut himself again trying to change the plastic line in the weed whacker, I thought, ready to give him “its okay sweetheart, let me take care of it” comfort. “Watch out!” He yelled this in my direction as he backed away towards the deck steps knocking me over in the process. He bent, grabbed my hand with his left hand, hauled me up and fled as close to the house as he could. Before I could ask what he was getting so excited about, he said “bitten” and pointed towards the shed. I squinted in the sunlight. I expected to see maybe a mad raccoon or our neighbor’s nippy little dachshund, Zeus who has a habit of biting ankles, when he said the word “bitten,” but all I could see were three or four bees buzzing around the door of the shed. “What am I supposed to be looking at? Did Zeus get out again?” “Bees! The bees! Look at them! One of them bit me!” He showed me his right hand where there was a swelling the size of a quarter on the knuckle of his thumb. It looked angry and red. He just glared at me and sucked on his knuckle. I took him inside where I applied ice and got the benydryl because I’d read that helped stop the itchiness of insect bites, and, er, stings. When the swelling had gone down and the stinging sensation had stopped he told me he was going to get rid of that “damned hive.” I asked him why. For answer he held up his thumb. I told him maybe he had disturbed the hive and scared the bees. I was sorry he was stung and all but maybe they were protecting their hive. He would just have to stay away from it and then they’d leave him alone. He said it was going to be awfully hard to stay away from them considering where they had built their hive. “Where is this hive that you can’t avoid?” He took me outside and pointed towards the shed. I looked up at the eaves and saw no sign of a hive. “Well? Where is it? I don’t see it. Is it invisible or something?” “It is, in a way, because they built their hive,”(pause for big effect),"in the small space between the door handle and the wood on the door of the shed. There is no way that I can avoid it if I want to go into the shed for something. The hive has to go.” “Well, just do it as humanely as possible.” He didn’t respond. The next day we went to the garden shop where we bought all our environmentally safe products. The owner told Alan that none of the safe stuff really works that well. He suggested that maybe diluted dish detergent might help. Then he took Alan aside and asked in a low voice if I was the reason he wanted a “safe” product to get rid of the bees. My husband just nodded. “That’s because she didn’t get stung. Wait.” And with that closing remark he sold us some product made out of soap that was, of course, safe. He also warned us to approach the hive only at dusk when they were mostly somnambulant. Needless to say the product didn’t work and neither did the diluted liquid detergent we tried a few days later. As for them not being active after dusk, believe me they weren’t so very somnambulant as we thought. Twice we had to race back to the house to avoid the bees who obviously were insomniacs. Overnight it seemed as if they had taken over our garden. We watched the busy little bees buzz from flower to door handle and back again. Now, however, they no longer seemed intelligent and endearing. They seemed cunning and dangerous. There were always several bees who never left the vicinity of the hive. If we even stepped foot off the deck they seemed to sense it and gather themselves into a small army. Alan had titles for a couple of the bees. There was one he called the “sentry” bee who buzzed above the door always in the direction of our house, ready to alert the others of danger. Another one was the “outrider” bee who flew around the yard looking for any threats to hive security. We became bee watchers. We had no choice; it was for our own safety. Having feasted on our flowers and built their hive they became the aggressive conquerors of our property. We had become the conquered who were allowed to live there as long as we knew our place. And our place seemed to be nowhere in the backyard. Finally Alan had had enough. “Honey, listen we’re prisoners in our own home. How normal is that? I’ve got to get something more potent than dish detergent to get rid of the bees.” I tried to dissuade him but he was determined. Once stung… “But can’t we…move the hive?” “Are you kidding? No.” “How about if we tried…calling a bee-keeper?” “Won’t work.” “Maybe if …” “No.” “Maybe, possibly we could…” “No. I’m going to the hardware store tomorrow to get something that will get rid of the bees, that’s it. Otherwise, I swear, they’re looking to take up residence in our house. It’s only a matter of time.” I sighed. The hardware store sells all kinds of poisons. As much as I feared the bees, and I did, I felt badly that they were going to be destroyed. I wandered out to the deck. I looked at the garden. The flowers needed watering. The hose was close to the house. If I aimed it high and on full blast the water could reach the flower bed. I looked at the hive, it had gotten much bigger. There was just the sentry bee keeping guard. Good-bye brave little bee, I thought. I went to unhook the hose. “Ouch!” There was a hot stinging sensation on my cheek. The sentry bee! He had gotten me! And he must have warned the others because there was another sting and then another. I was being attacked! I raced across the deck and in the back door screaming. “You little monsters, you evil sneaky, rotten, miserable……you….bit me!” Alan came running from the front of the house asking what happened. He looked at my face. “Wow! They got you good! Are you okay? Let me get the beny….” I stopped him. I wasn’t going to let him get me anything that would mitigate the sting. I wanted to have the sting give me focus. And my focus had a mission. “I want to go to the hardware store,” I said. “Tonight?” “Right now.” “Now? Can’t it wait until tomorrow? Let me get you some ice at least.” “Alan? I have been bitten by those sneaky ungrateful little bees. And to think I felt sorry for them!” “You mean stung, honey. Remember you said that bees don’t bite they st…” “I know what I said! Listen, this is personal. If you won’t come to the store with me, I’m going myself. No bee is going to sting me and live!” “Well, they’re probably dead anyway. After they sting, they die.” “Then their rotten stinging little friends are going to follow them! I will spray their hive to pieces!” “You said you wanted it done humanely, remember?” “Humanely? Humanely?! Not any more. I have been stung. Now it is personal, the bee vs me!” I marched out to the car. “He was right.” “Who?” I asked, scratching the stings. “Who was right?” “The guy at the garden shop. He said it would happen.” “What would happen?” “He said you’d agree to get rid of the hive on one condition.” “And that was?” “You’d get rid of the hive only when you, yourself, got stung.” Boy, was he right! ------------ About the author Kristen Houghton: Working on a book of short stories, I write a column, "The Writer's Block" on observations of everyday life and a column for educators called iTeach! Email: Krisnalan@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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