This post is dedicated to my friend, Missy, at Melissa Marie's House of Bees.
Yesterday at work was a very eventful day. All was going well until I got a call to come out and "see" what a bear did to a local beekeeper's bee hives. When I arrived at the farm field where the incident occurred, I saw Mr. and Mrs. Bell of Nuby Run Bees (Orbit, VA) all dressed in their beekeeping garb trying to put the hives back together. Apparently, a bear had tried to get to the larvae inside the hive. I always thought they were after the honey...I guess not! The bees were very upset. I guess I would have been too if something attacked my home. I was back at what I thought was a safe observer's distance, but apparently that wasn't the case. Mr. Bell walked over with a frame from the hive to show me the damage up close and a couple of the bees must have thought my hair smelled inviting so in they flew. I don't really know how many flew in my hair, but it was a lot. I heard them buzzing around down at my scalp. They told me to be calm and they would find their way out on their own. Yeah right! Well, not so much! I think they were planning to set up camp in there. So, I started to panic a little. Well, they started to panic too, and that was all she wrote. They started stinging and stinging and stinging. I really don't know how many times I got stung in my head and on my face, but I know that it hurt some kinda bad! Mrs. Bell doused me with smoke (that is supposed to calm the bees) during the incident. I'm not sure if that helped. All I know is that after the attack was over I smelled like I'd been sitting at a camp fire for hours. I'm pretty confident that the farmer and his son discing the field were laughing hysterically watching me dance around frantically.
When I got back to the office, I picked out all of the stingers (At least the ones I could find.) My co-worker had a Benadryl so I took that and decided to get home and rest before I couldn't make the drive home without falling asleep from the medicine. My head throbbed for a long while. I iced my head and slept for a while once I got home. Mr. Bell called to check on me. I told him that I wasn't making anymore farm visits to his place for a while. I'm okay today, but my head is really sore, and now the itching has begun. I told my friends at work that they might have to assist with the application of the anti-itch cream since I can't see inside my hair.
I'll survive. I must say that this is the worst thing to happen in my 9 years of working in agriculture, so I consider myself lucky! Lesson learned...there is no safe distance when it comes to bees.
