David Heiller
The bees are in the
mail.
Weaver Apiaries in Navasota, Texas, shipped them
out on Monday. Later this week the phone will ring and postmaster Kathy
Weulander will say in a voice that is not quite trembling, “Hi, Dave, your bees
are here, would you come and get them, PLEASE!”
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| This is how bees are mailed. David always got an EARLY morning call when they arrived. Sometimes the call came the night before, from the mail sorting center. Everyone seems to get kind of nervous! |
The bees come in screened containers about the
size and shape of a large shoe box. They look like a giant, buzzing ball.
Somewhere in the middle is their love and hope and future—their queen.
Kathy doesn’t have to worry in the presence of
queens like that. Even when some of the bees get out of their container. That’s
because they could care less about Kathy Weulander and David Heiller. No, any
escapees will cling to the side of that screened box, from Texas and Oklahoma
to Missouri and Minnesota without even a sideways glance at Iowa.
One did take a sideways glance at Cindy last
Sunday though. We were taking a sauna, and a dozen or so bees had made their
way into the hot room. Maybe they were attracted to the heat and moisture.
Maybe they were dirty. I’m not sure. But Cindy sat on one, and neither she nor
the bee liked it very much.
The bee was in no shape to complain. He bought
the farm. Cindy complained, and showed me the sting on her back forty. I didn’t
have my glasses on, so I had to look very closely, but I did finally spot the
little welt.
That was the first
time Cindy had ever been stung by a bee. Noah and Mollie have beaten her to it,
and I can’t count the number of times I’ve been stung.
At first it hurt Cindy’s, uh, backside, a lot.
After she put a hot washcloth on it though, the pain went away.
But Mollie and Noah started seeing bees in their
bathtubs, bees on the floor,
bees everywhere, most imaginary. Mollie had just washed up with soap. She
started crying and itching everywhere. She mistook her poor rinse job for bees.
I doused her with fresh water and her bees went away.
Bee stings are like that. They can make you
panic. I guess it’s understandable, but it’s a bit foolish too.
I was talking to Albert Chada about this the
other night. Albert is an old beekeeper from Sturgeon Lake. He told me about
one such incident.
He was at the food
shelf in Moose Lake when he saw a lady running in circles around her car, swinging
a broom. “I thought there must at least be a mad dog in that station wagon, you
know,” he
said. “She’d turn and start running down the street, then she’d run back.”
Albert, who is 73, ran up to her and asked what
was wrong. “There’s a bee in the car, there’s a bee in the car.,” she yelled.
“She was just frantic, like there was a
man-eater in there,” Albert said. “I reached in with my hand and made a swipe
and the air pressure pushed him out.
“If it would have
stung her, she would have passed out right there,” he said.
A small child was in
the car, watching all this, and when Albert opened the door, the kid said, “Me
scared too.”
It’s a funny story, but it’s sad too, Albert
said, sad to be so frightened like that over a bee.
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| Preparing the hive for the newly arrived bees. |
I like to bring my kids out to the bee hives,
especially in June. The bees seem gentler then. We lift off the lid, and pull
out a frame and watch the bees scurrying back and forth. Sometimes we can even
spot the queen, laying eggs non-stop. Or the workers, with big globs of pollen
on their legs. It’s a lot of fun. When the kids have company, they always want
to show their friends
our bees. Which I proudly show them.
I told this to Albert. He’s taught a few children and grandchildren
of his own about bees. “Those children will go all through lives and they’ll
never be frightened by bees,” he said. Some things we should be frightened about, but not bees.”
Albert remembered
one time when his son got stung a half-a dozen times or so. Some bees had crawled
inside his veil, which made him panic and run for home. (If anything will make you run, that will.)
“I said, ‘Panic is about the worst thing you can
do,’ and he said, ‘Yes I know’,” Albert said. Albert watched his son strip off
his shirt; hives broke out over his body. Albert thought about panicking too,
rushing his son to the doctor. But he
kept cool, and put ice cubes on the stings instead. The hives soon disappeared.
“He was just about building up an allergy right there,” Albert said.
“Half of my
neighbors say they’re allergic to bees,” Albert says with a laugh. “They’re not allergic to bees. Plus most “bee” stings are
from hornets, not honey bees.”
After I talked to Albert, I went upstairs to ask
Mollie a question: “Are you afraid of honey bees?”
“No, but I’m afraid
of hornets,” she answered. She must have something in common with Albert. I hope she does.
I like this poem a
mother wrote after her two-year-old
daughter was stung by a honey bee. When you put it with this picture, it’s pretty funny.
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| (This is not David's sister, nor anyone we know...) |
A bee stung Lynn beneath her eye
And though it hurt, she didn’t cry
It soon began to swell and close
And sister asked, “Do you suppose
Her eye’s asleep,
or do you think
It stuck when Lynny tried to wink?
That’s something to
think about the next time you get stung by a bee.
