I have a general rule in my household for all creatures: If I have invited or brought you into my home, you are a welcomed guest. If you have barged your way in, you are as good as dead. I don’t mind spiders and bees outside the home, but once they find their way past the threshold of the door, I am Death. I kill with no moral compass and dispose of the body swiftly and effectively. The only creatures that cause me trouble are flying insects with stingers. Bees, hornets and wasps inspire fear in me…mostly from past experiences with these particular insects en masse. Honeybees and bumblebees don’t bother me and as long as they aren’t close, I don’t bother with wasps, mud daubers or yellowjackets. Luckily for me, I currently live in a region of the United States where bald-headed hornets don’t live, so my #1 enemy isn’t a concern.
What IS a concern to me is a fairly recent addition to the book of known insects: Xylocopa virginica, the Eastern Carpenter Bee. For those who are unfamiliar, these large bees are fairly neutral in attitude, even being described as “curious” and “harmless unless severely provoked.” Right, like I’m gonna believe that. For the most part, they resemble a less-hairy bumblebee, and as far as any human impact is concerned, only damage wood creations, like benches, porches and house eaves.
It’s a quiet Sunday afternoon. Idiot Child, myself, The New Kid and The Mechanic are working. I’m in the back playing manager, counting things, sorting stuff and generally letting the first two work the counter to get some customer experience. I’m gnawing on a donut from the box that Idiot Child brought in (I swear, he’s bribing us) when I hear a noise I have heard before: A Cessna coming in to land. But the nearest airport is seven miles away.
I turn around slowly and come face to face with the carpenter bee, which is hovering about eight inches away from me, as if he was studying a new friend he had met for the first time.
You know the kind of fear that freezes the nerves on your neck…the kind that overrules all control you have and forces you into pure flight-or-fight responses? Yeah…I went straight there. Completely devoid of care or concern for anyone else in the building, I practically threw the chair I had been sitting on across the warehouse while screaming obscenities like I’d just been shocked with a cattle prod and effing BOLTED out of the warehouse. The bee, concerned that something was wrong with his new friend, followed me out of the warehouse and into the front counter area. New Kid and Idiot Child didn’t seem to pleased to meet the bee either, but they both managed to keep their shit together. The two customers were watching cautiously. I shot down an aisle to the back of the store, but again, the bee followed me, wondering what was causing me such great distress. Thinking that the bee was acting aggressively toward me, I shot into the only room in the building where I would feel safe: the bathroom. I shut the door and took a breather, trying to calm my neurotic ass down for a minute. It was then that I felt the need to use the facilities.
As I was in the bathroom, the bee, worried about me suddenly disappearing out of sight, began a frantic search of the area. I know this because every few seconds I’d hear another random surprise reaction from a co-worker who found himself near the bee. At some point, the bee noticed an air vent that had noises coming from it that sounded like a human trying to calm himself down. Thinking that maybe if he got me alone that he could somehow show me that he was harmless and just wanted to be friends, he found his way into the vent system, and after travelling down some pipes, found the vent pipe that drops straight into the male bathroom.
It’s a damn good thing I was sitting on the can when the bee practically fell out of the air vent to right in front of my face.
At this point, any shred of sanity was lost. I grabbed the straw broom and started swinging, trying to bat the buzzing bastard into the garage door. The bee, now concerned for his own safety, took refuge somewhere under Warehouse Guy’s desk. My irrational fear kept me from going after it with any of the chemicals, so when I left tonight, the bee was alive.
As of writing, that bee is still under there, going over what went wrong with making friends with a human being. Tomorrow morning, Warehouse Guy will come in and start his day at the desk. Tomorrow is my day off, but I might still come in to see what happens when the bee tries to make another friend…
I had a run in with one of those little bastards last summer. He got in my face and I swatted him away with the back of my hand. In an instant he was back even closer, buzzing louder as if saying ” is that your best mother f….r ?” He left after a few seconds. Ballzy SOB!
I am not sure if this post is a really late april fools or whater
its a frigging Carpenter bee they have the sense of a wet paper bag and unless you go off screaming like a idiot and swinging at them they are completely harmless their sting is mild at best
You’re reasoning with someone who has been swarmed bad enough to be hospitalized. Trust me…I know what all the research says, and honestly, it wasn’t aggressive like a hornet. But I don’t give a f*ck…it’s a big-ass bee that was way too close to me. I’m still amazed that I resisted the urge to grab a can of Brake-Kleen and a lighter.
While carpenter bees aren’t a big threat to humans. They are a threat to my wallet and I’ll kill everyone I see.
Gee, 440, I hope you meant every one.
I share your unreasonable fear of the little winged barb-butted creatures. One got me on the eyelid which caused my eyes to swell shut; I was blind for three days. Now I lose all self control and shame when a bee is near. Fortunately my wife loves insects and always rescues me from my temporary insanity.
Whatever your fear,it made Diet Coke come out of my nose…..
Brakekleen with the tube inserted is deadly to flying insects at about 20 feet. With several brands to choose from, I always tried to use the one that didn’t leave too much of a stain on the windows.
All I can say is thank goodness Parts Guy was in the bathroom when he lost his shit over a tiny insect.
I usually leave the spiders and centipedes alone. They’ll handle most of the rest of the bugs that might even think of invading the house.
yeh, I hear ya…the flying ones bring out the scares in me.. in Australia, we have some beauties…huge cockroachy looking bugs with wings, wasps, etc but the spiders are the scary ones here (at least in the insect world..lets not get started on our animal life..) was working under a recently acquired car that came from up north in the country (`the bush’ if you like..) and met a few of the 8 legged inhabitants… huntsmen spiders the size of your hand ( but mostly harmless) but the one that made my bowels loosen was a redback spider that dropped down from above (I was wedged in under the car and just plain couldn’t move ) – he dropped into my eye socket so I closed that eye and watched him scared shitless out of the other eye..he walked across my face and disappeared down the front of my shirt…I had to get out from under the car very very carefully and quietly so as not to startle the little guy – then strip off on the front lawn until I found him – standing in my jocks on the front lawn shivering in fear and an old lady walks past and goes ` spider, huh?’ `redback ‘ I reply… she said ` nasty little f@#kers’ and kept walking…had nighmares that night…
redbacks, by the way, are very venemous..to quote wkipedia, `The redback is one of the few spider species that can be seriously harmful to humans, and its preferred habitat has led it to being responsible for the large majority of serious spider bites in Australia. Predominantly neurotoxic to vertebrates, the venom gives rise to the syndrome of latrodectism in humans; this starts with pain around the bite site, which typically becomes severe and progresses up the bitten limb and persists for over 24 hours. Sweating in localised patches of skin occasionally occurs and is highly indicative of latrodectism. Generalised symptoms of nausea, vomiting, headache, and agitation may also occur and indicate severe poisoning. ‘
Sorry about your fear of bees, but that was a good belly laugh knee slapper story.