I have never been stung by a bee.
When my older brother was 12, I saw him run from a bee that buzzed in front of him. He had swatted toward it and, sensing a threat, the bee starting circling in to attack. He stood up and ran, tripped on a rock, and had a sharp piece of gravel embed into his knee.
My parents wrapped his leg in gauze and used ointment on his arm. The bee had stung him anyway.
I am slightly afraid of bees, yes. I understand that they are just looking for nectar, and they can get confused by colorful clothing, but the thought of being stung is slightly scary. What if I am deathly allergic? Does it hurt? How badly?
Fearing a bee sting is irrational. It’s surely not that big a deal (a minor inconvenience), and I’m someone who stabs myself with needles all the time. Perhaps it is simply the lack of control, which is where most of my anxiety stems from anyway.
This Wednesday, a bee landed on my knee while I was riding the bus.
Most of the bees that you see out and about are female worker bees. These are the ones responsible for collecting pollen and nectar. They are the most numerous type of bee in their hive.
Worker bees are so small, you don’t recognize when one has landed on you. Perhaps she thought the pattern on my pants was a place to land— I was sitting pretty still. She crawled along for a minute, tending to her legs. It seemed like her wing was damaged. I moved my leg a little, but the bee did not rise up or fly away.
Being aware that a bee was on me wasn’t really anxiety-inducing. After the election results came in from the night before, maybe I just didn’t care if I was stung. Maybe it was a recognition that this bee needed help. I don’t know. I don’t know.
The bee clung to my leg when I got off the bus. I crossed the street and looked down to see it still crawling around on my thigh. I felt pity, in a way.
It wouldn’t have been a good idea to bring it with me into the building I work at; children and adults alike would be upset about the insect. There is only so much that I could do to help a bee. Does a hive see a worker bee with a broken wing as disposable? Would she be something that the hive would miss? Would her brothers and sisters recognize her absence?
Of course, I’m personifying a bee because I see myself in the situation. I am clinging to the legs of those around me. I feel at times that society sees people like me as a defect that needs disposing. Surely there are people who would acknowledge my absence, but in a world where I am so small, it feels like nothing matters. The change I can affect is only on the small scale. I can ripple out toward my neighbors and coworkers, but eventually the pond will return to stagnation. I will do all that I can in the face of it all.
I brushed the bee off of me near a bush by an apartment building. That was all I could think to do.
It was all I could do.