Tuesday, May 28, 2013

I'm bringing home a Baby Bumble Bee...


Finally, warm weather has come and so with it hanging laundry outside. I love the fresh sunshine and warm breezes on the towels and blankets. Every once in a while I forget about the laundry, especially at the beginning of the season. It was almost dark when I remembered the towels I had hanging outside. Not wanting them to blow off the line (the wind had picked up and 2 were already down) or be all wet in the morning from the dew, I went out to quickly get them. When I grabbed the first towel, I heard the loudest buzzing around me, ever! It stopped and I looked around and saw nothing. As I was taking down the towels I kept trying to figure out what that sound could have been. Laundry off the line, I went inside the house. Laying the towels down to fold, I soon found the source of the buzzing…an absolutely humongous bumble bee started flying around the kitchen!
No, he wasn't cute like this!

Kids started running and screaming and I looked frantically for the fly swatter. I didn’t find it, which is probably best as this bee seemed to be the size of a hummingbird and a fly swatter wasn’t going to do anything to it. So I grabbed the broom. I try swatting at this thing thinking, “I must kill this and not get it angry. I cannot allow this bee flying around my house stinging the children.” Meanwhile the kids are yelling, “That must be the queen bee! It is so big.”
Attack bee is what we saw.

I swat and miss, bee changes direction and so do I. Swat again, another miss, another change in direction.  This seems to go on forever, although I’m sure it was only seconds. Swatting again, the kitchen door opens and there stands 19 yo, door open, looking at his mom with a broom in the air, hearing his siblings screaming. Since he opened the door in mid-swat, I yell, “Look out!” I actually hit the bee and it falls at my son’s feet. I see it start to move and yell. “Step on it!” His size 10.5 shoe calmly steps on the bee and suddenly the bumble bee didn’t look as big. We swept it outside and pushed it through a crack in the deck to make sure no one stepped on it. Especially 22 yo who is VERY allergic to bees.

Kids still yelling that it must have been a queen bee, I start to relax knowing this momma bear was able to protect her cubs and not get stung in the process.

And I have decided that all laundry will be taken down while light enough to see clearly, or they can blow away and get wet. I never want to see a bumble bee in the house again!