Asamee Blog

I have never, in my entire life, been stung by a bee. I have no point of reference for knowing what that is like. Yet I do have a fear of it. I have been stung by a yellow jacket, though, and that was awful so I figure a bee sting must be pretty awful, too.

I don't pay much attention to bees and they tend to leave me alone, too. My honey, on the other hand, is a bee magnet. And, of course, bees freak her out. I remember a time on our honeymoon when we were driving bayou backroads in southern Louisianna and an enormous bee flew into the car. It was the biggest bee I've ever seen; the size of a small baseball.

My honey immediately shifted into a state of hysteria and I became rather nervous myself. I wasn't sure what made me more nervous; the bee or my honey. My honey was flailing her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs for me to stop the car. Well, there was no shoulder to the road. To leave the road would have meant going in the swamp. So I hit the brakes and stopped right in the middle of the road. It's a good thing there was no other traffic.

The car had not even come to a complete stop yet and my honey had her door open. She was out of the car in a heartbeat. Luckily, she didn't end up in the swamp and managed to run along the side of the car towards the back. And she kept on running. She didn't stop until she was about a hundred feet behind the car.

I got out of the car pretty darn fast, too, but once outside I remained within a few feet of the car. I wanted to be able to see the bee leave the car through the opened windows so I would be sure it was gone. The car was still running. I managed to put it in park before I got out but I didn't have time to turn the car off. Despite the sound of the car running I could still hear the bee buzzing around in the car. I think it was the loudest bee I've ever heard. It sounded like a squirrel's chainsaw.

So there we were in the middle of the bayou standing in the middle of the road while our car was being hijacked by a bee the size of a small peach. Alligators were probably watching our every move. As my honey yelled, "Is it gone yet?" I shook my head no.

Occasionally, I caught glimpses of it as it flew around the inside of the car. I knew it was still in there, though, because of the buzz. But then, suddenly, the chainsaw fell silent. I had not seen it fly out the window so it was still in the car but without the buzz I couldn't be sure where it was. The silence was suddenly more "deafening" than the chainsaw buzz of the bee. I stepped closer to the car to get a better look inside. Despite the fact that the car was still running it was eerily calm as I stuck my face closer to the opened windows. I looked all over the inside of the car but saw no bee.

Then suddenly the chainsaw started back up and I jumped back a few feet. It was definitely still in there. It took about ten minutes before the bee finally flew out of the car and the whole time not a single car drove by. It was unmistakable; I saw it fly out, but it still took me a few minutes to convince my honey who was still standing in the middle of the road a hundred feet behind the car to come back to the car and get in. Once we were driving again there was a very noticable tension in the air. I think if the sound of a bee buzz would have started she would have flung herself right out the window and fed herself to the alligators.