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Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Attacked by bees

I've never ever been attacked by bees before. A thousand times when a feeder gets covered with bees I remove it and replace it with a fresh one. Today my feeders were all fine except one was covered with bees. We've had wind gusts occasionally, so I figured wind had tilted it. I just reached my hand through the swarm and was taking the feeder down when they attacked.

In hindsight, the feeder looked a little different than normal. They were swarming all over the feeder, not just the base area like I normally see. Maybe because I have my feeders covered with satellite dishes now, they were going to start a hive there. I'm sure there must have been a queen in the swarm. During the attack I ran and got into my car so I was shut inside with dozens of the pursuing devils. I managed to get the situation under control. Then when I went back to spray the dish with Raid, I got attacked again. The whole thing was an experience for sure. Once in a lifetime, I hope.

I was covered with clothes all over except the hands and face. Ended up with 4 stingers in me, one inside my nose, one on my cheek, and two on my hand. Don't know how many bites above that I actually got. Since I'm not allergic to them I probably wouldn't have reacted to any that didn't leave the stinger, but took a benadryl just to be on the safe side.

I enjoyed watching a male Lucifer Hummingbird bathing under the sprinkler this morning. It's extremely hard to get a decent shot of that activity. They move so fast. I can't focus that fast. But I set the camera on a greater depth of field and did my best. This is the only one that turned out even half-way.




2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks. I'm fine except wish I hadn't taken the benadryl. Brian happened to witness the whole thing. Of course there was nothing he could do. He kept asking if he should take me to the hospital, but of course, I knew I would be fine. Just most definitely not a pleasant experience.

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