A more useful cookie would have come my way on Saturday and said “Beware the Ides of March,” except the last three words would have been scratched out and replaced with “Bees of Sunday.”<\/p>\n
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I went out with my hashing group Sunday morning for a little trail through the desert south of Udall Park in Tucson, and found myself back by an old landfill the city of Tucson is slowly trying to reclaim, several hundred fenced off acres with some old concrete pilings along the northwest corner. \u00a0We’ve done trails in this area before (I should know, I’ve set many of them), and the last few times we’ve been by those pilings we heard bees buzzing and knew there was a hive nearby. \u00a0Sunday morning I’d gotten separated from the pack and was by myself, walking and daydreaming, when I looked up, saw where I was, and remembered the bees. \u00a0And then there they were, just one or two at first, then lots and lots of them flying all around me, and suddenly I was stung, once, twice, three times: forehead, ear, left forearm.<\/p>\n
They say all wild bees in Arizona are killer bees now, mixed in with that Africanized strain everyone was so worried about years ago. \u00a0Well, our worries were justified. \u00a0I immediately remembered reading about a maintenance worker who was killed by them when he came upon a hive while working on the roof of a Ramada Inn not half a mile from where I was. \u00a0All I could think to do was to stay calm and try to get away from the area as quickly as I could, without making sudden movements or batting at the bees with my hands. \u00a0I did a quick one-eighty and walked away as fast as I dared, keeping my arms still at my side. \u00a0The bees kept flying around my face and arms, getting up under my hat and buzzing by my ears, even landing on them, and I felt many more landing on the back of my t-shirt. \u00a0They stayed with me for a quarter of a mile, only leaving when I got back to the ball fields in the developed area of the park.<\/p>\n
Once I was out of danger I pulled out my cell phone and called one of my friends in the pack, still on trail. \u00a0They must have walked by the hive moments before I was attacked, and I wanted to make sure everyone was okay. \u00a0They were, and not one of them even knew there were bees in that area. \u00a0Now that I think about it, I suspect the bees were just doing their own thing when the pack walked through and stirred them up. \u00a0And then I came along … Paul the target.<\/p>\n