This is long and unrelated to motorcycles, but it gives good insight into the kind of crap that happens in my life: Saturday morning: Go to start the truck, and get the click-click-click of a dead battery. It’s been dying a slow death, and I figured at 7 years old, I’ve got my money’s worth. I’m happy it gave out in my driveway, instead of the parking lot of a strip club or something. Anyway, I get out a few tools to remove the old battery, then remember – oh yeah, my Chevy uses METRIC fasteners? Anyway, get the old battery out, go to Wal-Mart and get back home and install the new one. Finishing up, feeling satisfied, when I hear a loud buzzing noise. W..T..F..? Is the battery blowing up? No, the buzzing is behind me, as I look up at the side of the house, I see approximately 8 bagillion honey bees in a big undulating bee ball hanging on the side of the house.
I do what any rational person would do – get the water hose and spray that big bee-ball. As I’m doing that with an odd sense of wonderment, the water makes the bees at the base lose their grip, and the bee-ball comes plummeting down to earth. I estimate about 1/4th of the bees die on impact, the rest either lose consciousness for a while or immediately go into a blind rage. So I scream like a little girl and run into the house. My wife is already on the phone and has arranged for a bee-keeper to be at the house Sunday morning. I peek through the blinds at the mayhem I’ve created outside. We give them a couple hours to settle down, and then leave the house for a while. As we leave, I notice the big bee-ball has reformed; only bigger and more pissed off this time. Yeah, I’ll leave this to a professional.
Sunday morning we get three calls for directions from the old bee-keeper. As he gets closer, you can hear the excitement building in his voice. He’s one of those 70 year old guys that just came out of an old western. You could strike a match on this dude’s palm. He’s so eager to get at those bees; he climbs his ladder up to the second-story window sans bee-suit to examine them. I look on and wonder, “He must really know what he’s doing – those bees would sting the crap out of me if I did that”. As I watch him, I realize the bees ARE stinging the crap out of him. He’s looking around up there, and will occasionally flick a bee from his face as he’s on a rickety 25’ extension ladder. Didn’t faze him at all...this guy is a MAN. Sometimes I think of myself as a man…I mean I do some manly things, but when it comes down to it, some people are bad asses and some aren’t. That dude is and I am not.
Anyway, the badass bee-keeper gives us a thorough history of bee psychology and physiology and then gets all decked out in his suit. He estimates about 15,000 bees are up in an awning above our window. He takes his Sawzall up on the ladder, opens it up and proceeds to scoop out a big mess of bees, hive, honey and sticky matter. He says they’ve been there about six weeks and have about 20 pounds of honey made. It’s already hot outside, and this guy is earning every bit of the $250 he’s charging.
So he does his thing and we’re standing in the driveway cleaning up and BS’ing. He’s got his bee suit off, but there’s still a few stragglers flying around. As I mentioned, it’s hot out and I’ve got on my “Jesus boots” (sandals). One of those little #$%*ers lands between my toes and proceeds to sting the #$%* out of me. I want to cry, but the old man is there, so I’m like “Huh, looks like a bee just stung me” and carry on like nothing happened. My whole foot is on fire and I want to cry, but I’ll be damned if I so much as blink in front of this guy. So he finishes up, we shake hands and he drives off. I run in the house screaming like a little girl and my wife pulls the stinger out of my big toe.
I didn’t sleep much last night, because I kept swatting myself at the slightest itch. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat honey again. It may take some therapy to get over this.
