One of those days...

[ostarella]

Today was supposed to be a productive day working outside.

That's about as far as it got.

Started out with a few things to get taken care of online first. Which would have been okay if I hadn't overslept.  Once I got that stuff done, I went out to start the chores by filling the bird feeders - only to discover I was totally out of sunflower seeds. So that meant a trip to town, and picking up a few other things that I needed - after taking time to make sure I had a list of all those "few things" that I needed. Got back, filled the feeders, then remembered I had to make a couple phone calls regarding our tiller - and then wait for people to call me back.

In the meantime, it was getting hotter than hell. Relative to the season and recent weather, anyway. So by the time I went out to start raking and cleaning out the gardens, my still thick winter blood just didn't want to deal with the heat. Plus still being a bit out of shape from the months of little or not activity. So came back in, decided to clean up the house until it cooled off a little outside.

Merrily bustling around the kitchen when this loud - as in, VERY LOUD - buzz raced past my ear. Looked around - HUGE bumble bee bopping around the kitchen. Huge as in good inch and a half.  And not happy. Now, bumble bees are not known for their benevolent attitude anyway - being trapped in a room does nothing to improve that. And he definitely considered me the cause of all his problems.

I have a pathological fear of spiders - my fear of bees is more practical. I've been stung twice in my life and the resulting swelling, pain, stiffness and overall "I'm going to puke my guts out" feeling is not one I wish to relive. So I let him chase me into the bathroom, where I locked him in long enough to get the bug spray. (Yes, chemical-free life nothwithstanding, there's a matter of pure survival instinct - so I do have bug spray. Potent bug spray.) And I spent the next 15 minutes alternating between chasing and being chased.

But I won. :D

So, now my heart is doing it's wonderful little I'm-stressed-out-you-idiot! thumping  and I'm sitting here thinking, I don't give a damn if the gardens ever get cleaned out.

But since we're due for thunderstorms for the next few days, I guess I'll have to get off my ass and work this evening.

But all in all - I'd rather deal with heat and bumblebees than snow and cold. Any day.

Comments

[ostarella.livejournal.com]

NO! This is not your cute little honeybee - this is an honest to God horse of a bee. Picture a bee the size of your thumb with BA's disposition - that's a bumbler. And they can sting you over and over and over.

Glass - I'm thinking tank.

[billy-shriner.livejournal.com]

lol! Well, I suppose if you react the way you do to being stung, then it has to be you or the bee...

I thought all bees stung only once and then died... even the bumble bee. I've seen some bigguns... but not the size of BA's thumb :-O

I swatted a hornet once, and good job... It was on the window, and could see all the "eggs". Didn't want one of those nesting near the house :-O

But Bees I try to save... and butterflies... The stupid things come into my bloody conservatory in the summer when I have the door open.

I even saved a grasshopper once. It was big and black, and because I didn't have my glasses on initially I thought it was a spider... But because it wasn't a spider, I couldn't kill it lol!

[beckyblack]

The bees dying if they sting thing, it depends on the species. it their sting is barbed like a fish hook, it will stay in you and when they pull away it stays behind, along with it's sac of poison, which the bitee usually then manages to help along by squashing it! The bee then dies. But if the sting is smooth it's more like being bitten by a snake, inserts the sting, injects the poison and then pulls the sting out and goes about its day.