Bee Family

Published: Dec 6, 2021
Reading time: 2 min

I was visiting my parents house, and was sat in their living room when they informed me they’d started keeping honey bees and wanted me to be accepted by the swarm just incase I ever needed to look after them in the future. They explained that the usual procedure for this was to add paper to the hive for use as building materials.

As I approached the hive, it was just a large pile of sheets of A4 paper in the middle of the room swarming with bees. I crouched next to it and started rolling up sheets of A4, folding the ends and sliding them into one corner of the pile hive.

After this, for some reason we needed to smoke them even though they were friendly so I lit a couple of the pieces of paper to generate a little smoke in a reasonably controlled manner.

This fire however soon became out of control and bees started stretching lengthways like worms trying to escape. We started digging through the pile to try save the Queen but as you dug deeper there were ants in the middle of the hive that would attack you.

I was bitten by a large ant that looked like a bullet ant that had grabbed onto my hand and wouldn’t let go. I had to pincer it with my fingers and twist it’s head clean off which made the body start walking around which then sung me with it’s wasp like singer once freed.

While all this was going on, the hive continued to burn and finally was just a pile of honey and ash.