Story

THE BIG STING

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Open a map of New York, go as far east as possible and you’ll find the town of Montauk – a laid-back fishing village kissing the Atlantic Ocean. I lived there for the first 18 years of my life with my brother and parents before heading off to college.

Winters were harsh and barren, a sharp contrast to the summers teeming with tourists escaping the cramped and sweaty streets of Manhattan in search of the perfect wave, the perfect tan and the perfect lobster roll. Springtime in Montauk is mesmerizing with trees budding, flowers sprouting up through the ground and the delicious smell of the ocean. We’d keep the windows open at night and fall asleep to the sound of the waves.

Our house was off the beaten path, with only two neighbors within walking distance. In the house on the left lived a young couple with rambunctious five year old triplets: Timothy, Thomas and Theodore – ‘The Terrorizing Trio’. Befitting their status as triplets, the boys had identical mountain bikes – one red, one blue, one green – which they rode with wild abandon on the dirt road, through our back yards and down to the beach.

Our neighbor on the right was the usually phlegmatic Doctor MacGregor – never-married, retired history professor-turned-nature-enthusiast. He was particularly particular about the upkeep of his yard and the glorious profusion of flowers attracting all varieties of birds and insects. His pride and joy was a tall redwood apiary which housed eight honeycomb trays. Inside reigned the queen, surrounded by her working and droning subjects. Mac, our secret nickname for the professor, would don his protective gear every day and inspect the hives and the honey production, all the while puttering and muttering, making sure everything was as it should be. 

And it always was …. except for THAT day when mom happened to be outside hanging the laundry; she looked up at the sky and saw a huge black swarm rapidly approaching. Mom ran into the house and yelled for us to “close all the windows and doors”; we watched anxiously as thousands of buzzing bees hovered over our house, took a sharp turn and headed straight for town. After the bees took off, we were shocked to hear the usually mild-mannered Mac angrily shouting and cursing; we ran over to see what had gotten him all riled up.

Trevor, the triplet’s father, raced over from the other direction to see what all the commotion was about. We all arrived at the professor’s yard at the same time to discover a disheveled and blustering Mac wandering around the remnants of his beloved apiary. Splintered pieces lay in a heap on the ground, the redwood gouged and marred with clearly visible traces of blue, red and green paint. Trevor groaned audibly and raced out of Mac’s yard toward his own house, yelling out the triplet’s names as he ran. It was obvious they had crashed their bikes into the apiary and were probably hiding from the inevitable fallout.

As we silently helped Mac clean up the mess, we became aware of screaming and shouting off in the distance; it was coming from the village as horrified townsfolk ran for cover from the angrily stinging horde of bees.

It took a long time for the residents of normally tranquil Montauk to settle down after that day; the only one who benefited from the bee attack was the town G.P., who was kept busy tending sting after sting after sting.

As for Timothy, Thomas and Theodore …. they were found hiding behind their garage crying and covered from head to toe in bee stings. The boys were in a lot of discomfort (not to mention trouble). Trevor felt sorry for his sons and he was not unsympathetic but the triplets needed to be punished for the damage to Mac’s apiary. They were grounded for three weeks – one week for each boy – and their scraped bicycles were temporarily locked away in the shed.

As for Professor MacGregor …. he’s taken up birdwatching.

NAR © 2023

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34 thoughts on “THE BIG STING”

  1. Those poor kids, just doing what kids do. When I was about ten, me and my mates were just messing about and I kicked a box as we walked through a field. Suddenly, bees everywhere! Got stung s couple of times so now I have a great respect for them!

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  5. I’m allergic to wasps. Stepped in a nest of them in a log when picking blackberries as a child. I was covered in stings everywhere not covered in clothing. I’m not sure how old I was, but I was still small enough for my dad to carry me out there like a bag of groceries. Little blighters even stung the inside of my mouth. I’ve never been stung by a bee though. Carry an epiPen during the summer. I’ve only had to use it once, and that was in Antwerp.

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    1. What a horror show for a little girl to experience! How awful for you! Wasps are nasty and notorious for attacking without reason. They can target something passing by just for being inside the wasp’s territory. Wasps will release a pheromone to signal to the rest of the nest that there is a potential threat, which will cause a swarm to emerge to defend the colony.
      I’ve found bees generally do not attack unless provoked but you’d be wise to carry the epiPen everywhere you go.

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      1. Found in SPAM … UGH !!!
        I lived mid-island. Babylon is a small fishing town. We lived there from 1970 – 1989. I adored it. Sadly, taxes and other escalating costs drove us to Florida. We’ve been here since 1989. We used to go to Montauk to get the ferry to the out islands. Babylon had its own private beach so we (on family budgets) didn’t travel much. Thanks for taking me back to a wonderful memory. 😎😀🤗

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    1. Thank you for the share, Nick. It’s most eye-opening, important and disturbing.
      There is a quote from Einstein which my SIL includes in her pamphlets:
      “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.”
      What have we learned in the 68 years since Einstein’s death?

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    1. This is a serious problem; people need to be educated.
      My sister-in-law teaches young children the importance of protecting the bees and butterflies in our gardens and what we can do to help. There are some species dangerously close to extinction and there are easy steps we can take as a start to reversing the damage …. but I’m preaching to the choir!
      Thank you for your thoughts today, caro. 🐝

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