Honeybees

 Our niece keeps bees. It’s an admirable occupation. Sherlock Holmes kept bees in his retirement on a small farm upon the South Downs.

Our apiarist relative established a hive about three years ago, at the outside corner of her parents’ house in Charleston, South Carolina. She has about three pounds of honeybees, or 10,000 little winged creatures.

We recently visited Charleston and as I was lugging luggage to the front door, I heard an angry buzzing around my head. I walked all around the front yard to escape but the insect persisted in circling my head. I finally starting waving my arms around my head, beginning to feel crazed by the incessant buzzing. I felt my right hand hit something fuzzy and larger than a housefly and then that unique and familiar sharp pain that bee venom inflicts. A little whitish stinger was lodged in the proximal phalange of my right index finger. (Yeah, I had to look it up on Johns Hopkins’ anatomy chart. It’s the finger part nearest the wrist.)

Jim scrapped off the little stinger (remarkable pain from such a small puncture caused by a tiny bit of organic material) with a credit card. I knew enough not to try and pull it out: it has a sac that can release more venom if squeezed.

Over the next day. instead of improving, the swelling moved from my finger to the back of my hand towards my wrist until my knuckles and veins disappeared and my skin grew taut. The worst of it was the itching. I trained myself years ago never to scratch an injury, but I was sorely tempted. We saw Beethoven’s Third Symphony that night and I struggled to concentrate fully (we were in Charleston to enjoy the annual Spoleto Festival USA). The next day the swelling was even worse. I remembered that I had some steroid cream from a previous poison ivy rash. It took another day to take effect, but over a few more days the swelling subsided.

As I understand it, the symptoms we experience after an injury or illness are caused by our own immune system reacting to the invasion. I’m sure it would be worse if we had no defenses against microbes and poisons, but I wouldn’t mind a little downgrade tweak to my system.

The beehive, after three years of growing, is finally producing honey. Our niece gave us a little jar, which I will enjoy when we return home. My attacker will not enjoy home: when the stinger is lodged in the victim the bee suffers fatal internal injuries.