Recently, a Cincinnati Reds ballgame was delayed for over a half hour due to swarming bees. I don’t own the picture, so I can’t post it, but you can see one here.
This could have had a very bad outcome in the form of a quick-acting pesticide. Or a neutral outcome in the form of a strong mint spray, which doesn’t kill bees, but which they dislike heartily enough to fly away. (That’s what I use on carpenter bees at my house to keep them from chewing up my porch railing.)
With the world’s honeybee population currently undergoing severe population declines, though, even breaking up a community would be an unfortunate thing. The fact is, whether or not you personally like bees (I do, but I have a granddaughter who is phobic about them), we need them.
So what happened was pretty cool.
The queen landed on a seat in the Diamond Club section near the field and the other bees swarmed there. Again, I can’t show you a picture, but you can see one here.
And then a couple of local beekeepers in attendance found a cardboard box (an empty carton that had housed Joey Votto bobbleheads), lured the bees into the box and took them home. According to beekeeper Jon Beers, the bees settled in quite happily and are already producing honey.
How great is that?
Sure, Jeanne, you say. Great story, but What Does It Have to Do With Romance???
The arc of that story is very similar to a good romance–there’s a conflict (man vs. bee) that intensifies (delay of game, freaked out players and fans, TV people thinking about what an extended delay will do to the schedule) until there’s a black moment (because you just know some idiot proposed killing the bees) and then an unexpected solution and a happy ending.
What makes the ending so uplifting is that it didn’t happen that way. With the TV cameras rolling and executives getting impatient, Dr. Pesticide could just as easily have won. Because of the danger of a bad outcome, the good outcome was as sweet as honey.
How have you used the black moment to intensify your happily ever after?
Eight Ladies Writing 
LOL, I love this story in so many ways. First of all, if you take the bees out of baseball, you are left with “ace all”. Hmmmm. Also, what if a Queen Bee DID set up shop in the Diamond Club section? Married a millionaire who was sitting there, and produced her little bee-babies in a private resort that her husband owned? Or what if the bees were retribution against some nasty business person?
I like the idea of bees very much and have often thought of setting up an apiary . . . but I was badly stung as a child by a bunch of wasps, so I’m phobic around anyone with stingers. Now, we pretty much have a truce — as long as they aren’t within a meter of the house, I’ll live with them, plant them flowers, and wish them well.
I like bees. They tell me that when I was a tiny child I once came into the house with a bee inside my closed fist. I held it out to my mother and asked her to hold it for me while I went to the bathroom. When they exclaimed and warned me not to do that, I assured them that, “Bees won’t hurt you if you don’t frighten them.”
Sadly, I’ve lost that ability. I’ve even been stung a couple of times, once when running barefoot through clover (not recommended) and once when a wasp got trapped between my arm and ribs. (Ouch.) But I’m still not especially afraid of them. Just a lot more wary and respectful.
Aw! That’s a special connection! I seemed to be the anti-Bee — I got stung by a bee on the nose when I was five (I was sleeping), and then later came the Great Wasp Incident. It took a long time for me to overcome my panic when I saw something flying around me that was the right size and sound.