Bad Bee
As we all know there can always be a bad one in any bunch. We have lived in Tisdale for three years straight and have never met a honey bee let alone had a confrontation with one. When communicating with people around the world via e-mail one of the questions we are often asked is, "what about the bees? Isn't it dangerous living with so many bees around all the time." To these inquiries I could always respond cheerfully that they mind their business and I mind mine. Well that was up until today, when this belligerent beast found her way into the FTLComm van and when I got into the vehicle she was somehow trapped between the seat and my right leg. She did not hesitate a moment and I was not aware of her presence until this shocking pain distracted me enough to require immediate evasive action to avoid running into a building, as I was moving down a back alley. But she was not finished, I was able to disable her momentarily and pull the stinger from my leg without a vehicular collision, then I took her hostage
The amazing thing was that I had never met her kind before and so I walked around the street asking people to identify her and in the bus depot the lady there wanted to use her fly swatter on the bee's still struggling body, a man in the street said he didn't know if she was a wasp or a bee, in the bank three young people all felt she must be a wasp because everyone in Tisdale knows "Bees don't sting." I presented the struggling hostage to the bank manager and his henchmen resulted in a shrug from the henchman, which is the way he handles most things, and the manager decided definitely, I had a still live honey bee. The bank clerk, a life long Tisdaler, scolded me for interfering with her because "honey bees don't sting" unless you interfere with them. I held on tight to her wings which are amazingly sturdy and with my right leg still reporting discomfort I took her home to show my wife. My wife's first reaction was to grab a fly swatter. I placed the culprit on the kitchen table for the portrait you see above then at my wife's insistence I took her outside.
Knowing that the loss of her stinger and my mistreatment of her had left her in a mortally wounded condition she was placed on the step and summarily executed.