Henry the Hermits Survival School

Rule #6 Bees are not the Bees Knees

Wow, you must not have anything better to do if you're back here reading this. Kudos to you for making it this far and not dying and boredom yet.

Today we are going to talk about bees and how you shouldn't be messing with them, no pun intended.

This event actually took place about four months ago, it was a hot July day and I was picking up sticks around my place. I had a handful of foot long sticks the size of your thumb, and I was walking over to put it in my firepit.

I threw the sticks in the pit and brushed the bark and dirt off my hands, I turned around and heard a faint buzzing going on around my ear. I couldn't believe my eyes! A honeybee was flying around!

This may sound stupid, but I followed that tiny little guy all the way back to her nest. After walking for about five minutes, we reached her nest. The hive was in a old dead log that had fallen years ago, the middle was hollowed out so there was plenty of space for a bees waxy nest.

I kept my distance and bent over to look at their nest, inside there was tons of bees buzzing all over the waxy comb. Honey was dripping out and some even pooled on the ground, where the ants had taken a liking to the sweet golden liquid.

It's been years since I've had honey, a bear, skunk, or raccoon would probably get to this, so I knew I had to act somewhat fast so that I can harvest it.

I remembered that somewhere that smoke makes bees calm down. I figured that its worth a shot, I built a fire about a foot away from the nest and added lots of leaves and pine needles so that it would get extra smoky.

As I was getting the leave on, I heard some chirping noise, it wasn't a baby cougar. It was that stupid chipmunk again, I was hoping that he had somehow die in the middle of the night, or got eaten by a bear.

The chipmunk was sitting at the edge of the fallen tree, he bent over and peeked his head inside of the hive. Next to him was a pile of grape sized rocks, I know that I should probably be running away  but I was curious to see what he was going to do, which I know that curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back!

I sat there, my chin resting on my fist wondering what he was going to do this time. He grabbed a rock and threw it into the hive, then took another one and threw it in there again. The nest started to come alive and buzzed even louder than before.

My eyes widened in terror realizing what was going to happen next. I grab my satchel threw it loosely over my shoulder and ran for my life, jumping over stumps and random rocks. That wee devil threw the rocks into the nest making it stir and start chasing me thinking that I woke them from their peaceful slumber.

A grown man running away from a swarm of bees, that sounds better than running away from a mama goose. My right hand was holding my hat in place as I was flying by, pretty sure I saw some racoons whip their heads to right once I whished past them.

Remember one of the earlier rules? How I was saying that you need to dive into water to get away from angry bees? Well, that's exactly what I did. I threw my bag on the ground not wanting it wet, and with my hand still holding my hat in place, I took my left arm and wrapped it around my knees that were tucked under my chin.

This cannonball I did into the lake, it would've qualified for the Olympics that's how impressive it was. I stayed under the freezing cold water until I felt my lungs start to burn like someone poured tabasco in them.

This looked like something straight out of a cartoon. I slowly lifted my head above the water, I heard a croak and saw a brownish green frog that was on the lily pad that was on the brim of hat, almost falling off.

I came out of the water looking like the missing link that came from the swamp. I had a lily pad with a frog on my hat, weeds hanging off of my arms, and mud from my knees down

Be careful with bees and once again, don't trust chipmunks. HTH signing off.