Grandpa Keeps Life Interesting

A long day of work was slowly winding down. Much had been accomplished, but there was much still left to accomplish. So there I was, fielding phone calls and diminishing piles of paperwork in the office, when Grandma Ruth came busting in.

"Shawn! You want to come see the Bee Tree?"

"Bee tree? Where?"

"Right behind the shop! Come see!"

I had not been informed of any bees in any trees, so my curiosity was immediately piqued. What reckless hooligan installed a tree full of bees behind our shop?! I tossed my paperwork aside, it could wait til later.

Grandma practically sprinted through the shop to the back door, which opens up beside a small driveway that runs behind our shop and separates the buildings from a small wooded pasture. Out in the pasture, our trusty John Deere tractor was idling. Connected to the tractor was a chain. Connected to the chain was a decent-sized tree trunk which had been recently cut. The trunk was laying near the stump it had been attached to until only moments before. But there was nobody around. Great-uncle Terry's pickup was sitting there, abandoned. Grandpa's four-wheeler was out near the tree, but he too was MIA.

The reason was immediately evident. Thousands of bees angrily swarmed around the stump. The largest portion of them hovered twenty feet above the ground. Upon a careful scan of the landscape, Grandma and I found Grandpa and Terry, who were 200 yards away from the tree hiding from the swarm.

Grandpa and Terry were crouched in the small gully near the bottom right of this photograph. The driveway I mentioned earlier is on the ridge of the hill on the right of the photograph.

Terry was holding the chainsaw, and Grandpa was rubbing his head. They came over to talk to us.

"Did you get stung?" Grandma asked Grandpa.

"Yes, right on the back of the head." Grandpa replied.

"He got stung when he removed his hat to swing at the bees!" Terry said, laughing at the irony.

I was still in shock. Why didn't I know about these bees, located a stone's throw from my office?

Grandpa explained that the bees had been there for quite a while. The tree was completely dead, and the top half had broken off and fell against an adjacent tree. It was inside that crook that the bees set up their Mega Command Center. This was why the swarm was hovering twenty feet above the ground; that was where their home was, the last time they checked.

"Man, that's gotta be a thousand bees at least." I said, watching the thick clouds of outraged Apis Mellifera churn the air above the stump.

"Thousands." Said Terry.

"I reckon there's a hundred thousand bees in that hive. There's probably a hundred pounds of honey in that trunk." Grandpa mused.

When Grandpa found out about the bees a month or two ago, he tried enticing several local Amish farmers to relocate them. They weren't interested. "Evidently it's the wrong time of the year for moving bees. If you move 'em too close to Winter, you gotta feed 'em all Winter long." Grandpa explained. Obviously the bees store up food for the winter months, so you have to move them before they begin storing.

Grandpa needed his four-wheeler and Terry needed his pickup, so they both dashed in the woods like madmen and charged out with the vehicles. Grandpa moved the tractor forward a couple of yards and shut it off, opting to leave it in the pasture til later, when the bees forgot he was the tree-chopping fiend that had displaced their hive. Terry escaped with only two bee stings, but Grandpa gained an additional two to bring his total up to three. Even a hundred yards from the hive site, the bees angrily followed Grandpa like a modern-day lynch mob.

"You need some lavender oil. That'll take the pain out of those stings, Dad." My dad said to Grandpa.

"Naw, they're alright now. The one on my head felt like someone clubbed me but it's nearly gone now. The other two stings were on my back and those are gone as well. On the plus side, that's three less bees alive. Terry said that could be an effective way to remove the bees; get stung by them until they all die off." Grandpa said with a smile.

I grabbed my camera from my car and walked behind the shop. I snapped a few photos from over a hundred yards away and was STILL chased off by some irate bees.

Not sure if you can see the bees in this photo, but I wasn't inclined to get any closer to the stump just so my dear readers could see angry bees from the comfort of their homes.

It appears we'll just have to wait it out. Winter will calm the bees into hibernation, and then we can chop up the tree. Grandpa is already itching to get it done, which made me laugh. Apparently, it's a common thing for Grandpa's generation to shrug off bee stings in order to get work done. I deeply admire Grandpa's work ethic, and I hope to have at least a third of his stamina and strength when I get to his age.