Never, Ever Poke A Beehive

Bees. They pollinate our plants so we can grow food, make honey, and a plethora of other things.

As good for the planet as they are, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I detest bees. You may be wondering why I, Aleah Thompson, lover of all animals and insects, dislike bees so much. It all happened about five years ago at my cousin’s birthday party.

When my cousin turned 18, our family decided to have a little get together at the park. I was eleven at the time, and Jaxon, my little brother, was eight. For the majority of our time there, Jaxon, my younger cousins, and I were running and playing around at the park. One of our family friends had brought their dog with them and were letting the kids take turns walking the dog. However, when it was my turn to walk the dog, he gunned it to the lake, dragging me along with him. Luckily, someone managed to grab the leash and keep him from dragging me into the cool, algae filled water.

A little while after that, we all gathered in our secluded area with all the tables, ate, and cut the cake. While all of us kids were on a sugar high, we decided to grab the football from the back of my dad’s truck and play football. However, after around thirty minutes, the younger kids decided that they’d rather try to catch a duck rather than catch a football. And with that, only Jason, the only cousin around my age, my brother, and I were playing catch with the partially deflated football. A few excruciatingly boring minutes later, Jason noticed something: a beehive in one of the trees a few yards away from us. This had piqued our curiosity, and the three of us went over to check it out. We heard the buzzing, and immediately realized this was not an empty nest.

“Well, would you look at that!” Jason remarked, staring at the massive gathering of bees, with his signature mischievous lopsided grin.

“What do you suppose we do with it?” Jaxon said, looking at the, then at Jason and I, then back up to the hive.

“I say we leave it,” I retorted, wondering why on earth anyone would ever mess with a bunch of bees, all armed with stingers. I had never been stung up to that point, and I intended to keep it that way.

“Look what I found!” hollered Jason, holding up a stick.

Oh no, I thought. He’s gonna try and poke the bees, isn’t he? And to my dismay, he did. He didn’t succeed, but boy, did he keep trying. While he was jumping about, stick in hand, after a minute or so he looked like he was about to give up. When he turned to walk away, we both saw a brown object fly into the mesmerizing swarm of black and yellow. Jason and I stared at each other in shock, then looked at my brother, who was laughing. It was only after a few seconds we realized that Jaxon had hurled the football into the beehive.

After a few seconds of confusion, the angry mass of bees charged at us with the anger of what felt like a thousand raging bulls. Terrified, we all started running to the lake, screaming like banshees all the way. I was the fastest of the three, so naturally, I led our frantic dash to the lake. With only twenty feet left to the lake, I felt a sharp pain on the back of my leg, then another. Soon, I felt that same sensation on my arms and my back. To my relief, I had reached the lake and dove into its cool, welcoming waters, Jason following close behind. It took another ten seconds or so until Jaxon joined us, bawling as he threw himself in. We waited a few more minutes in the lake, waiting for the bees to leave. When they did, we finally started walking back to everyone, Jason and I dragging Jaxon behind us because he was crying so much that he couldn’t see straight.

When we got back to where everyone else was, everyone freaked out. Understandably so, as we were completely soaked, and Jaxon was still crying profusely. While our parents were helping us dry off and taking care of our seemingly infinite amount of bee stings, we explained to them what happened. They thought we were stupid, and to be completely honest, I agreed with them. After, we all went home, and since none of us were allergic to bees, we were mostly fine, save for where we were stung.

We never got our football back, and between us three, we were stung thirty-seven times. We had learned the hard way to not mess with nature and its creatures, and you best believe we didn’t go around poking anything in the wild ever again.