"Bee" Very Alert

I am not "afraid" of many things. If I come across a stray dog I am cautious and I have a pretty good sense as to whether or not the dog is friendly or mean and I am rarely afraid of an animal. I can deal with snakes, reptiles, lightning, roller coasters, and even spiders. The ONE thing that still scares the shit out of me is a bee. I still run like a 6 year old kindergarten girl when I see a bee. If a bee gets into my car, I'll pull right over on a four lane highway, open all the doors and windows, jump out of the car, and wait for the buzzing fucker to exit the vehicle. Why am I, a man in his early 30's, afraid of a bee you might "bee" wondering? (I know that was cheesy, but I had to do it).

In some of my prior 400 posts, I've touched a bit on my family and growing up. Basically my dad always worked and never really got involved in anything at the house or in raising us. My mom, the stubborn and hot-headed Sicilian, pretty much ran the house. Although she worked outside the home too, she was the one who took care of everything at home, including repairs and all kinds of stuff. She did many of these home repairs half assed with a butter knife, but that's a whole other topic. Let's talk bees.

Each year bees would nest in the shingles of the house directly above the front door to the house, directly above the back door to our house, and directly above the door to our "shed" where we kept our bicycles, lawnmowers, and a host of other things. This shed was HUGE. It once was a summer cottage back in the 1920's and 1930's, so it was like 1/4 the size of our house. With the fun of summer each year, came the fear of the killer bee swarms in these three areas. When you would try to get in or out of any of these three areas, the bees would dive bomb and chase you, yet my parents thought this was fuckin' normal and never did anything about the bees.


Still fuckin' traumatized 

So my brother, my sister, and I developed "the buddy system" for dealing with these bees so we could get in and out of the house and the shed. Here's what we used to do. One of would be the "caller", the caller was responsible for yelling out the exact "coordinates" of the bees and whether it was safe or not to make a run for it. Then there was the person who would create a diversion. We'll call this person "the entertainer". This person would throw a ball, spray a hose or throw some other object toward the swarm so they would disband and temporarily fly away so the "runner", the person responsible for running into the shed to get the bikes, could get in. Once in, the runner would ghost ride the bikes out of the shed and we'd have to catch them while avoiding the swarm. It was quite a production every time we would want to get our bikes out.

The same action was required while taking in groceries from the car in the driveway. When we pulled up we'd assess the situation and come up with a strategy. We'd load up as many bags as possible to avoid any additional, risky trips past the swarm. Basically bees ran our home, we didn't.

The bees would normally show up around late April and not leave until late September. The only savior we had was my grandfather who, if we called and cried about it enough to, would come over with his blow torch and burn the nest. He'd go up on a ladder, towards evening when the bees were back in the nest, and burn the nest with all of them in it. He'd wear no protective clothing, and he NEVER got stung!!! We'd be in amazement. I think he'd always catch them off guard or something. They would always nest in the same spots every year, torch or no torch, they would always come back. Anyway, now can you understand why I am still afraid of bees? Wacky story, but VERY true!!!