Hornets

I had a couple run-ins with bees. I was allergic to the stings into my twenties. The first was not related to a stinging but the second was.

I was riding a horse between my house and Ruben and Geutrid's (where I fell off the freight sled into the snow and where I went occasionally to sip milk directly from the cows and where I got my hair cuts). In less than a second an oncoming black dot slammed into my forehead and literally knocked me off the horse. I had a small tear in my flesh from the impact.

At Rube's we had a meal on their porch once. The yellow-jackets were thick. Rube put out some bee traps he had made by placing a funnel shaped screen into the top of a jar or can. He placed some raw meat into the jar and set the screen in place. The bees would go after the meat and not be able to find their way out of the container.

The most dramatic encounter took me to a near-death experience. My wonderful little sister and I were out in our small back yard. There was some recent tree-fall (wind probably). We came upon a mad buzzing in the ground (the tree had apparently disturbed a bald-headed hornets nest). As I moved forward, the ground came up to meet me. I have no memory of the next several hours so have no idea how I got from the back yard to the house to the doctor 17 miles away. He was busy with a patient so I sat for a long time in the waiting room. Finally, he took me into the area where he could give me some attention (do those rooms have a name?) and began pulling out stingers. Mom told me he had reported removing over 200 stingers.

I have a great deal of respect for hornets and yellow-jackets even today.