On Pests

March brought a premature spring. ONE DAY IT WAS GRAY AND 40 degrees; the next, the sun shone, the air smelled new and fresh, and the temperature hit 70. Jacketless for the first time in months, my family and I bounced our way to church, swinging our arms, talking of picnics, and avoiding the bees that swarmed at our feet. Every few feet, it seemed, black bees hovered and buzzed over patches of bare soil perforated by dozens of pencil-sized holes. Piles of dirt mounded at each of these holes, making them look like miniature model volcanoes or oversized anthills. They were bee nests, and they were everywhere. All of West Urbana, it seemed, was rife with bees.

We were walking with friends that day, a mother and her two children, one seven and the other three. The seven-year-old, a friend and role model of my daughter's, normally confident and irrepressible, was rendered immobile by these bees. Each time we approached a gathering of them, she would freeze, squealing, her arms clamped to her sides. It took a good amount of patient coaxing from her mother to get her to move again.

These were ambitious bees, we figured, mover-and-shaker bees who wanted to get an early start on their pollen gathering, despite the lack of flowers—or else they were poor dupes who had been fooled by the premature warmth, as our lilac bush would be a week later, and as the apple blossoms at the local orchard would be, blooming early only to be shocked into a barren death by a late frost. We admired these bees, their initiative, their energy, and mostly, their numbers. I had never seen this sort of ground-nesting bee before, and I had certainly never seen such bees in such profusion before. They impressed us, and their industrious presence added to the cheer of the morning, as long as they kept a respectful distance from our children.

When we got home from church, I saw that a busy collection of the same black bees had colonized our yard. Their little volcanic nests made a mountain range of the garden bed next to our front entrance. We have neglected this little 4 × 2 area since we moved in, allowing the few daffodils and tulips that come up each year to bloom, but otherwise leaving it to the weeds. I saw maybe 40 nests in this one area. The bees buzzed menacingly, like bullies hanging out at the corner liquor store, thumbs in belt loops, glaring down passersby. I steered my kids around to the back door.

I've been stung by a bee only once in my life, when I was a teenager, but the sting dizzied me, shortened my breath, and caused my skin to press up into hive hills. The doctor told me I might be allergic, and that the allergy could worsen with greater exposure, so that eventually, a bee's sting could threaten my life. He gave me an EpiPen, which allowed me to dose myself with adrenalin by jamming a needle in my thigh. Since then, I have mostly ignored this potential affliction. I do try to keep the prescription updated, but each time I renew it, I feel as if I'm perpetuating a little lie, pretending to an illness I don't have. I suspect I'm not really allergic; that my reaction that morning stemmed from mild shock at the pain of the sting. But there is the chance that I could be in danger from the sting of a bee, and so even though I rarely remember to carry the EpiPen with me in the summers, as I should, I do make an effort to avoid bothering bees.

This is what I learned as a kid, and what I have told my daughter: that bees won't bother you if you don't bother them. And so far, this advice has worked well for me. The day I was stung, a bee flew into my thigh while I was riding my bike, which was nothing I or it could control...