ABOUT BEES, HONEY

I’ve never much liked bees.

Walking barefoot in the clover as a kid, I stepped on a bee more than once. A sting on the bottom of the foot takes all the fun out of a summer’s day. Mom used to treat the sting with half an onion rubbed on the bottom of the foot. In this case, the onion would help dry up the tears. I don’t know why the onion worked, but I guess it did. When I became a mom, I treated my own kids’ stings with an onion rubbed on, thus passing on the memory if not the cure. Popsicles are good for bee stings, too. Not rubbed on but eaten, melting, running down our hands and taking our minds off the sting.

We have neighbors who have bee hives. We’ve seen the white boxes back behind their driveway but have never gone over there and talked to them about what’s inside. I wonder if they get honey. My sister-in-law Mandi (with an ‘i’) sent us the best honey at Christmastime, honey harvested from their local beehives. I wonder if our neighbors’ Arkansas honey tastes as good as that Pennsylvania honey did. I suppose I should go visit the neighbors sometime and maybe find out about that.

When I go, I will definitely wear shoes.