H 14° L 12° Flurries | 5MPH  Blue Bungalow Farm  Heather Zydek
writes about life on the east side of Tosa.  Vanishing Bees
Bees, Colony Collapse Disorder, beekeeping, apiculture  Growing
up, I was absolutely terrified of "bees," the name I used for a
variety of tiny monsters with dreaded, piercing stingers and
stripy yellow and black backs. I was destined to get stung, I
reasoned, if one of them came near me. As a child I was always
afraid of any creeping, crawling thing, but my exceptional fear
of bees and wasps was sealed when I was about seven years old.
One evening, I bolted outside the second the last bite of dinner
was consumed so I could ride my bike in the waning hours of
daylight. As I pulled my bike out of the garage, I unleashed the
wrath of a yellow jacket. It chased me up the sidewalk until my
hero arrived: Jack, the burly tough-guy next door, who lifted
one gigantic work boot and smashed the creature underfoot.  I
spent my entire childhood running in this manner from bees and
their kin. While c