Bumblebee, please don’t sting me.

When my older sister was very young, we were at Egavik, which was a reindeer herding establishment in the days of old, a bumblebee landed on her leg. She did not know what to do and did not like this big bug on her so she covered it with a towel. As soon as she covered it the bumblebee stung her. I never wanted to get stung by a bee so my mom told us to be very still and wait for them to fly away. I lost a lot of berries growing up running away from bumblebees, I would run run run until I was able to be near my mom or my dad and take comfort in their cover. My brother would play a trick on me growing up, he would grab a bee shaking it in his hands and throw them at me. It was horrific and only added to my fear of bugs. There are two bugs I was never afraid of that is the butterfly and the dragonfly. I want to overcome my fear of bumblebees so I may do a starter hive this summer. To this day I have never been stung by a bumblebee. Two summers ago I was picking raspberries and I stepped on a wasp hive, I ran swatting and yelling and screaming. My second eldest son drove myself and Duke back to the cabin, I cried all the way home. My worst fear had come in the worst of ways. I counted over 20 stings and used meat tenderizer made into a paste to help reduce the swelling. I love to plant wildflowers in the spring for the bees, although I am afraid of them I understand their importance as pollinators. I don’t mind dandelions because I find them beautiful and they are the first flowers of the spring that the bees rely on. They can also be used as salves and jelly and the roots are medicinal. Who is man to say what plant is a weed, when the government puts that label on a plant and when you do research on that plant, more often than not that plant serves an important role in remedy that is natural, God given. I hope to never be stung by a bumblebee and hope to one day not be afraid and each year that fear subsides because I do not want Duke to be afraid of bugs. It’s kind of silly because one of my nicknames growing up was bug. Love bug.