Backyard Work Detail Met With A Stinging Backlash

We awoke to a day that promised to be sunny and warm. There wasn’t a cloud in the picture-perfect, blue sky and the birds were singing happily. It was a great day to head out into the yard armed with shovels, gloves, shears and a bouncing 2-year-old eager to help in any way to clean up the yard.

So started a balmy summer day a year and a half ago. My husband and young son walked out the front door shortly after breakfast to attack the jungle of shrubs, overgrown trees and bushes, and some sort of ferocious looking growth at the far corner of the yard. I was preparing to follow them as soon as I finished cleaning up the breakfast dishes.

I was walking down the hall toward the front door when the morning peace was disrupted by a terrible scream, followed by another and another. My first reaction was anger, thinking that Andy, my son, was playing and screaming for no reason. But the screaming didn’t stop.

My heart slowly moved up to my throat and I could barely breathe as I raced for the door and swung it open violently. My husband was racing just as quickly for the front door, clutching Andy and dragging him between his legs.

I thought for one terrifying moment that he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Then I saw the hornets. They were swarming everywhere.

Something clicked and I knew immediately what was happening. I grabbed Andy and threw him through the door, closing it quickly behind my husband, and began batting at Andy. Unlike bees, which sting, hornets actually bite and they were biting him mercilessly.

I tore off all of his clothes, finding at least three hornets down his shorts, and searched frantically through his hair, finding one nasty creature still biting the inside of his tiny ear. We managed to kill all the remaining hornets and I rushed Andy to the hospital.

Thankfully, Andy and my husband walked away without any permanent damage. My husband received three bites and Andy suffered through eight. In the end, both suffered only mild allergic reactions. However, it could have been a lot worse.

My husband had accidentally struck the hornets’ underground nest with his shovel, stirring up and angering hundreds of the vicious creatures. We had the nest destroyed later that day. And the next time we worked in the yard, we were careful to inspect it carefully first. We had no desire to be the true life story in an Alfred Hitchcock-style movie: “The Bees.”