Friday, January 22, 2010

When killer bees attack!

It is honey season and man is it sweet. However, there is a price to pay for sure delights. The other day I was helping Kai Sakaria harvest honey at another neighbor´s bee hive; the neighbor recently broke his leg and couldn´t work bees. Anyways, we got out there and were checking on this hive and they were mad. I´m not talking about typical "hey get out of my beehive and stop touching my honey"mad, Im talking about "I will kill you and sting you until I know you are good and dead, and then continue to sting you"mad. I have never seen bees this angry, ever. Our smoker wasnt working that well, but the smoke it was producing had absolutely no effect on these bees. They all came out and the buzzing just got more intense. They swarmed us. These bees were flying right at us and just pelting both of us, it sounded like we were being hailed on. The scary thing about these bees is that they know to go right for the face, so my veil was just getting pounded by these bees. All of a sudden a couple entered my veil! And then more! I started to slightly freak out.
"They got into my veil!" I said
"Run!!!" Yelled Kai Sakaria, but I was already gone.
They were stinging my face and my neck. Imagine this; me in my bee suit, running full speed through a corn field aiming the smoker at my face and smoking as much as possible while at the same time using my other hand to try and crush the bees that were in my veil.
Kai Sakaria was right behind me, he too was getting hit hard by the bees but on his feet.
I had to take my veil off because I couldnt kill them and they were already getting me, so might as well take it off and clean it out and put it back on.
"David, no! Don´t take it off. They are still coming!"
I listened to him and we kept on running. These bees followed us about 1kilometer. Usually bees let you go after 100meters, but these bees were out for blood.
Finally, we got to a point were only a few stragglers were there and we could take care of them.
The back of Kai Sakarias jacket was covered in stingers, luckily they did not penetrate.
I got 3 half stings on my neck and a nasty one right on the eyelid! That, my friends, is true pain.
The worst part of it all was that I could not take the stinger out since I had my veil on so the stinger kept on pumping it´s venom into my eyelid.
"I am NOT going back to those bees" I said
"Neither am I, lets go home" Said Kai Sakaria.
We walked home, I already swelling and Sakaria limping. Nothing to show for our efforts except for a veil full of dead bees and a fat face.
I expected to get a lot of laughs but people seemed to be concerned. When I told them what happened they let out a chuckle and so would I. Looking back, the situation was a bit funny. It´s a good thing I always carry an EpiPen just in case....
And what did it look like, you may ask?




45 minutes after the sting.......









9 hours later, the next morning...........






Not so pretty.








12 hours later and...........






It´s too bad "Hey you guyyyysss" doesnt quite translate well into Guarani.
My face is doing better, I can open my eye now but I dont think I am going to be working bees for a bit.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey, that sting wasn't so bad. It only took 12 hours till you looked like yourself again.