Grandma Henke

Bee-lieve it or not … this blog gives me the shivers.

I have good reason for my fear of bees because when I was maybe six or seven years old my older brothers and I lifted the lid from one of Dad’s wooden beehives … that my brothers said was just full of honeycomb. They were wrong. It was full of angry, attacking honeybees. In an instant the air was filled with swirling, buzzing, stinging bees. I don’t have a clue how many times I got stung but I would be guessing low to say it was fifty. It was no consolation to me that every bee that stung us ended up dying. I was quite sick from all those stings and looked like something from another planet.

A few years later some of my friends and I were playing hide and seek on our farm and I went into Dad’s shed and crawled d behind a big piece of plywood that was leaning against the wall … and unfortunately right into a nest of bumble bees. Bumble bees don’t generally attack … but they do not like it when their nest is disturbed! And unlike the honey bee the females can sting multiple times. I just read online that the males don’t sting … now isn’t that interesting? However, the sting of the mama bumble bees is mean.

So anyway … I wouldn’t think it would come as a big surprise that bees tend to undo me. I can talk to myself when a bee is not around and say all kinds of things that I believe, such as “they are harmless … just hold still and they will go away”, but the truth is they freak me out. Confine me in a small space with a bee and I lose all reason.

When Warren was 2 and Angi was just a baby they were asleep in car seats in the back seat of our Renault and I was driving with the windows partially down when a huge hornet flew into the car. I immediately pulled to the side of the road and jumped out of the car … and freaked out. The bee was getting angry in the back window because it couldn’t find its way out of the car so I was going around the car opening the doors in hopes it would fly it … but it didn’t. I didn’t know how to save my babies from that awful flying monster so I looked around for a weapon and could only find a piece of a tree limb about 2 inches thick so I armed myself with it and approached the car, heart pounding, sweat pouring down my face and back. It was my intent to guide it out the window but I’d get close and the bee would fly into the middle of the car and I’d turn tail and run screaming down the slope with my tree branch. It must have been a sight for the mechanics across the street at the town gas station because when one of them came to rescue me he had a hard time not laughing. He was a show off … kind of a Fonzie type of tough guy … and he reached in the car and snagged the bee with his bare hand, threw it out the window, all in one movement. I had to sit in the car and slow down my breathing for a while before I could even drive home, it was that scary. I felt guilty for years that I had run and left my babies sleeping in the car.

Which brings me to the 2nd night of our recent camping trip where I have strained my lower back (probably from sleeping in the sloping camper). It was hard for me to stand up from sitting down and very difficult for me to get up if I was laying down. We had just barely snuggled ourselves into bed when Lynn, who was laying face to the wall, said, “Uh oh.”

“What do you mean ‘uh oh’”, I asked him with half closed eyes.

“There’s a wasp in here.”

I was laying curled in spoon position behind him and in an instant I forgot about my sore back and turned over onto it so I could flee the camper, but I only made it to my back before I was seized with muscle cramps and couldn’t move an inch.

If you read the previous entry about the first night of camp you know that it was a rather noisy night and we woke up several of the campers near us … I really didn’t want to do that again … but I couldn’t move and because I couldn’t move, Lynn couldn’t move and there was a wasp buzzing very close to our heads. I looked like a turtle on its back kicking its arms and legs as I tried to find a way I could sit up or turn over and get out of the bed. And I started freaking out in a loud whisper accompanied by little shrieks of pain and fear.

“Shhhh, you’ll wake everybody up again. Just move so I can get it,” Lynn said from where he was trapped face to the wall.

“I can’t move! Oh do something, help me up,” I shout whispered at him as I continued to try to rock myself into a sitting position.

The little camper is rocking back and forth by now with my efforts to sit up and I am breaking into a cold sweat. I didn’t dare pull the covers over my head for fear the wasp would be under there with me. By now Lynn is getting a bit panicked as well because I have him trapped with his nose against the wall and bound by the covers. The dog, who was in bed with us thinks I am playing and starts to bark and attack my flailing foot. Finally in one big moan and stab of pain I roll to my side, get my feet on the floor and leap up and out of the camper and little doggy follows me out … without her lease.

“Lady, come here!” I call as loud as I can whisper while I hobble bare footed trying to catch her as she dodges out of my reach (she still thinks this is all a game.)

The camper is still moving crazily as Lynn goes into his “I will save you” routine to kill the hornet. “I’ve got it,” he yells triumphantly.

“I want proof,” I answer from outside the camper door.

“Well I can’t find it, but I know I got it. It’s safe. You can come in now,” he tells me.

“I am NOT coming in there until you show me proof! I have to see its body first!” I answer rather hotly even though it is freezing cold outside.

Finally there he is standing in the doorway with his flashlight shining on the wasp, that I swear I can still see is wiggling on the floor … so he grabs his shoe and starts slamming it. The lights go on in the camper across the street and up the hill

“Oh crud,” I whisper. “Hurry turn out the light! Hurry!” I gingerly lift my leg up onto the step to get inside before I am spotted. Thank goodness Lady came flying out of the dark, ahead of me. Quietly the three of us try to remake our bed and get settled once more without waking up more campers, but it’s hard because of my back and the fact that once again I have the giggles in the middle of the night.