We are finally having a beautiful, rain free weekend here, that finally makes us sure summer really is near. And every spring, these beautiful, sun filled days make me actually want to spend the day checking things off my chore list, as long as those things are outside.

I have had a couple chickens who had decided to spend the last few weeks sitting on a nest full of eggs, so I had been really hopeful I could write a post about some fluffy little additions to the flock, but alas. The hatching window passed and no little balls of fluff appeared.

So the first item on my list for today was to encourage the would be mamma hens that they needed to vacate the nest, and clean out all the eggs they had been hiding. I wasn’t really looking forward to this, because I thought they were not going to be happy to give up the motherhood dream, but apparently our first day of lovely summer weather was too much for them too, because when I headed out to the coop, they were frolicking in the yard with the rest of the group, and the eggs were left to fend for themselves.

With that task taken care of a lot faster than I had planned, I figured I may get more accomplished today than I’d hoped!

Thanks to all the rain we had been delivered, my lawn was badly in need of it’s first hair cut of the season, so that was definitely on the list for the day.

Apparently, the end of season grass from last year must have grown in as razor blades, because somehow, I had ended up with a flat tire on my riding mower when I put it away for the season.

So my first order of business was to change out the tire.

Of course that task was not as easy as it should have been, but thanks to the happenings of the rest of the day, I’m not even going to spend much time boring you with those details.

The short story is, the tire got changed, and I was off to mow the lawn.

I have a bee hive that sits in the back corner of my lawn, right up next to the woods. I’ve had it pretty much since I moved in here, so I have mowed the lawn numerous times within a radius of the hive with nary an issue.

Evidently the bees were not happy with the length of the winter, or woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, because this was not the case today.

I made the first couple passes by the hive and noticed I attracted a few more bee chaperones than normal, but I didn’t really think anything of it at first. Normally, I just ignore them, or gently swat them away, and continue on my way, but these bees were not getting the message to go find something else to buzz around.

On my third loop around the yard, one of these bees decided to deliver a warning shot. Right into my shoulder.

I kept hearing the buzzing and looked down and realized I had a couple more crawling around on my shirt, so I parried a counter attack, and swept them away. I was moving away from the hive, so I figured they’d drop back. And they did. For a minute or two.

On my next pass around, they were back with a vengance, and delivered another shot into my ribcage and one to my back.

I took up a much more active counter attack strategy, swatting them away and flicking them off me as I finished up the rest of the yard, and managed to escape without them delivering another blow.

I have a little hill/ ditch combo at the end of my driveway that I can’t really get with my riding mower, so I pulled out my little push mower to tackle this area. I was a minute or two into this task when I heard the buzzing.

And received another shot to my calf.

Followed quickly by a shot to the hand.

Now for those of you who have been lucky enough never to have been stung, let me tell you. It doesn’t just hurt (and hurt A LOT) when they sting you, so you could maybe just grit your teeth for a minute or two and then move on. It KEEPS hurting for quite a long time.

I may have let slip a few “son of a seabiscuts” over the course of this attack.

And after 5 direct hits, my agitation level was starting to match that of the bees. Which unfortunately does nothing to help this situation.

As your agitation level rises, the bees just sit back and laugh and say “Game on, Human”

Then proceed to prove that size doesn’t matter.

So I decided I need a break from the warfare, and leaving my mower in the ditch, I beat a hasty retreat to the house.

I figure maybe if I stop all the noise and give the bees time to settle down they might go back to their day and let me get on with mine.

I decide to get some lunch, and give the knower of all things (my dad) a call to see if he has any ideas for getting bees to chill.

When honey bees sting, it’s a one and done for them. They leave their stinger in you and then they die. So my dad, half joking, suggested I just put on my bee suit, go stand out by the hive and just let all the aggressive bees run kamakaze missions on me until they wiped themselves out.

I considered this, but it was 75 degrees, and climbing into my bee suit did not sound like the most fun in that heat.

I finished my lunch and decided I’d try again.

I hadn’t even been out there for more than a minute when some little stinker gave me another shot to the hand.

I don’t think I have been stung 6 times in my entire life, and now I’ve been 6 times in a little over an hour.

So I resigned myself to finishing my lawn in the dark, after the bees had gone to bed.

I moved on to several other chores on my list and got several more checked off.

A couple hours later, I wanted a shower and a snack so I could sit down and enjoy a bit of the rest of the sun on the deck.

But I really didn’t want to shower without finishing up the lawn.

So I decided to kill two birds (and a few bees) with one stone, and put on my suit and go poke the proverbial hornet’s nest.

I suited up and proceeded out to finish up the lawn, figuring I’d get rid of the rest of the aggressive bees at the same time.

It took me 10 min or so to finish up, and not one bee came anywhere near me that entire time.

Not one.

Instead, there I was, mowing my lawn looking like an alien from another planet.

While the bees sat back on the hive having a good laugh.

I do have to give the bees some props for having a pretty solid business plan, though.

I also learned the one thing that works to take the sting out of a bee sting.

Honey.