I can hardly wait for the spring rains and warm sun to bring the flowers back. Soon after the bees will follow. Hundreds of bees visit my garden each year. Many different species work together to pollinate my blooms and provide constant photo ops. This bumble bee is nectaring at a Mountain Bluet flower. My husband is much less enthused about the bees. He has a fear of bees. I suppose I can understand since he has had numerous negative experiences with them. When he was in high school he was stung very badly right between the eyes. Both his eyes swelled shut and were swollen for well over a day. I had to laugh when he related the story to me. He and his family went to a farm they owned. They were mowing and walking around a pond that was on the property. They accidently disturbed a nest of bumble bees. His mom and youngest brother jumped into the pickup and shut the doors. My husband, his father and the middle brother all ran. Now all this did was create a predator prey situation and those bees chased them all over the field stinging them numerous times. I couldn't help but get a mental image of this, and began to laugh. I'm sure at the time it wasn't funny at all.Then many years later my husband purchased a motorcycle. While out driving one hot summer day, shirt partially unbuttoned and looking all cool for the ladies, a bumble bee went down his shirt. It began stinging him over and over in the chest. Now picture this.....he was trying to impress the girls with his hot studdly self, riding this hot studdly motorcycle. Suddenly it turned into a comedy routine for the girls and a horror story for him, as he tried to keep the bike steady while being stung and trying to get the bee out of his shirt. He said after about 6 stings he finally smashed it! Poor hubby! So I guess I can sympathize with his dislike of these fuzzy little pollinators. He seems to have created a truce of sorts with the bees, he gives them a wide berth and they ignore him. It is a true working relationship...as long as he stays of the motorcycle.
Haha awesome anecdotes.
ReplyDeleteI encourage bees to the yard, too, but my wife is allergic to them. And I have two little girls who don't need to get stung (and we don't need to test and see whether they inherited mommy's allergy).
but what can you do? flowers beget bees. so we compromised. i knock down any nests or hives on the property, but the visitor bees get to be unmolested (no insecticides or bee killers).
Fortunately for us, none of the family has allergies to the bees. Unless u count fear as an allergic reaction, then my husband is very ALLERGIC! he is so funny. He won't even go in the gardens when the bees are there. Bees=stings in his mind, and his fear is so deeply rooted there is no conquering it. Last year my Zumi Crabapple was loaded in gorgeous blooms, and then the honey bees showed up. That tree was literally buzzing as if it were alive. It was covered in hundreds of bees. I went and got my husband, I told him I HAD to show him something. As we got nearer to the tree, he stopped, and looked over at the tree. He said "IS that bees!" I said "Yes ain't it awesome!!" He just patted me on the head, and said yea great!...hehehe
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