I Hate Sewing Bees

It was official! If we wanted to keep using our mission flight service, our pilots wanted more distance between the airstrip and our houses for safety sake. To comply, we had two options: move the airstrip over another five yards or move our houses to a different location. Doing either of those would involve a lot of sweat and weeks of work.

Our row of log houses paralleled the airstrip. Matt Castagna and I lived in the second one from the far end.

We decided to move the airstrip since a lot of the area parallel to the airstrip was already cleared and planted with bananas. Besides, we liked our houses where they were, backed up to the river. That way the nomadic Yuqui could only come at us from the front and would have to cross the wide-open space of the airstrip to do it, minimalizing a sneak attack by them. Only a few areas, like right across from our houses, sprouted large trees that would need to be cut down.

A few days ago, we executed Plan A . We cut down one of the giants, limbed it, piled the branches into burn piles to dry, cut the log into sections and rolled them out of the way. A lot of work, yes, but easy peasy! Next, we started to dig the stump out of the ground. That was when Plan B began to look really attractive! We soon decided that it would be easier to move the houses than dig out all the stumps and roots of the trees we would have to cut down, and then fill all the holes left by the excavation.

May 1, 1978

Alan Foster, Matt Castagna, and I spent the morning clearing the underbrush in the corner where we would build our new “subdivision.” It seemed that every time I cut with a machete, I made honey bees, wasps, or hornets mad at me!

Today was the worst, at least with the agony their stings inflicted on my body. I was not even ten minutes into cutting when the attack came. A bee crashed landed on my head, trying to sting me, but got tangled in my hair, instead. I tried, to no avail, to brush it away, but its entrapment in my hair and the agitation of my hand swiping at it only made it, as they say, madder than a hornet! Before it was over, it succeeded in stinging me in the forehead. I felt the pain and almost immediately started to get a headache.

The hornet net that sent the sewing bee to attack me.

If it was a wasp or hornet, it could sting me over and over. I did not want that! If the culprit was a honey bee, it could sting me only once because it would loose its stinger and a good part of its abdomen, an outcome that would prove fatal to the insect.! I hoped it was a honey bee, but just in case, I yelled for Matt to come and get it out of my hair, but by the time he got there, the insect had escaped and flown away. Matt looked at the swelling welt in my hairline. My attacker had lost its stinger which Matt scrapped out of my skin with his fingernail. I was glad it was a lone honey bee and decided to continue working despite my growing headache.

No sooner had I commenced swinging my machete, a second time, than another bee was knocking on my face. It stung me on the end of my nose. Then like a sewing machine gone berserk, it sewed a seam up my nose, across my brow and over my forehead before getting caught in my hair. With multiple stings to prove it, I knew this one was definitely not a honey bee! I ran over to Matt and he grabbed it with his gloves, pulverizing it to obliteration.

Like all bee stings it was just a tiny puncture wound. However, the stinger must have perforated a shallow vein. Like water from an artisan well, great drops of blood rose to the surface and dropped from my nose, splattering my shirt and the ground with red. I pulled the bandana from around my neck and used it to staunch the bleeding.

I felt sick and wanted to go home. My whole head hurt! Darkness was infiltrating the edges of my peripheral vision. As I stood there talking to Matt and contemplating what I should do, a third bee got caught in my hair. Matt grabbed it with his gloved hand, holding it tight, but not crushing it. This time we could see what it was. . . a black hornet! After a few minutes, the blackness disappeared from my sight and faintness left my head, so I decided to stay, even though my face was swelling.

If nothing else, being stung multiple times injected some sense into me! I was the only one being attacked, so I must have been disturbing a nest somewhere. I looked through the underbrush from where the first attack came. How I missed it, I do not know. There, just a couple of feet off the ground, was the biggest hornet’s nest I had ever seen! It was about twenty inches tall and at least a foot in diameter, built around the trunk of a small sapling.

My desire for revenge erased most of my headache. I filled a small container with chainsaw gas and poured it over the nest and threw a match on it. With a great “swoosh,” the hornet’s nest was engulfed in flames. With great satisfaction I watched the stinging insect castle burn. As hornets made a beeline out the door to escape the fire, many crashed landed, their wings singed beyond function of flight. However, many more of the insects made it out alive, but without a nest to protect their threat to me was neutralized. I was able to finish the morning without further incident.

The rest of the morning went well. Today was a really nice day with low humidity. In spite of my headache, I enjoyed running the chainsaw and helping to pile the mess I made with it into piles to burn once it dried. There were no more hornets.

We started Yuqui classes today with Alan as our teacher. We are planning on having them three days a week.

Matt cut my hair this afternoon. It was the shortest my hair had been since I was in third grade. I wanted a butch cut with one month growth on it and Matt got it close to that. Hornets could still sting me, but at least they won’t get caught in my hair!

Almost bedtime. The swelling in my face had gone down some, but my right eye was still swollen enough to blur my vision.

Fin

This story was from the category Tales From Green Hell. If you would like to read more of my experiences in the jungles of Bolivia, please click on that link below.

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Featured Image From Flickr, Gilles San Martin, Photographer

Writings By Phil