The Tale of Bees

At some points in our life, there must be something interesting or memorable happened that even after years had passed, whenever the topic is being brought up, the memory is still there afresh, as if it just happened few days ago....

Yesterday I met my primary classmate who came to Tokyo for vacation as I haven't met him for years. And then, I read about this news of students being stung by hornets during a sports event. Suddenly the memory of an unusual "accident" replays in my mind..... and I think it's better I jot it down here before the memory fades as age passes on.




Let's rewind the time back to 12 years ago, 29 June 1999. I was in standard 4 primary school. It was like another usual Tuesday routine. I usually went to school very early, reaching around 645am in the morning. That morning, noticed there's some insects buggin' when walking across the grassfield to the school compound.. Because it's still dark (before sunrise) so didn't really bother it at all.

We had our physical education class on 815am, and as typical primary school students, we marched onto the field. By that time, it was already brighten up and we started to noticed the insects flying around were actually BEES. First we noticed a few classmates were irritated by the bees, and then suddenly havoc broke lose.

In just a matter of few minutes the bees went berserk and start stinging us. It's natural instinct to wave the bees off us, but this further agitated the bees which means, more insect rampages.

To describe the the situation better, there were hundreds of bees flying around the field stinging us innocent kids who're defenseless in this sort of "attack". A single bee sting is painful enough for some, and try to multiply the pain with tenths or hundreds. I kid you not, there're those who were stung more than hundred times. I still remember having the bees buzzing around and the distinctive smell of the bees, definitely not something that I'll look forward to "taste" it again hah.

So the poor students went running haphazardly on the field for our lives. While most headed back to the school compound, some ran into another classroom nearby; some ran towards the teacher's office; and some towards the school library. The staffs and other students were of course shocked to see kids running into the school crying and looked awful with all the stings and bees still dangling around our body.

As for me, although I was stung here and there, one particular bee actually squeezed itself into my right ear, to my horror. The bee's buzzing sound is annoying and freaking enough, and imagine having the buzzing happening right inside your ear canal.... oh gosh.....

While I ran to the library's side, I still remember the teacher actually took some of the library books and burn it to prevent the bees further coming into the school compound. Everyone were panic, and even called an ambulance.

But for those who're seriously taken down by the bee stings, they were sent to the hospital by one of the teacher's car. I was one of them, no thanks to the buggin' bee buzzing inside my ear. I did noticed that those who were on the same car appeared to be very weak. I reckon the toxic from the bee stings kick into action pretty fast, aided by that fact that the heart pumps faster (due to nervous and panic) thus sending the toxic into the blood faster than usual.

Reaching the hospital, I still remembered I appeared rather calm by that time, perhaps due to the fact that I'm quite familiar with the hospital surrounding as I went there quite often. We were treated at the emergency unit and finally I had the buggin' bee taken out from my ear, thankfully. The doctor inserted some sort of liquid into my ear and it solidifies, then the doc pull the bugger out from the ear canal for good.

The bees that stung us were 2~3cm in length, and really blessfull that the species is considered mild instead of dangerous as the toxic isn't that strong. We've heard of fatality reported from bee or hornet stings, and to survive as a 10 years old child with hundreds of stings was really something back then.

One of the reason why I remembered the date clearly is because due to the event above, I've skipped a day's homework. Rested for a day and when the next day back to the school, I noticed skipped a date on the exercise book. Back then there were a lot of homeworks even for primary school kids and to be declared "no need to do homework" is like one of the best reward ever lol.

Well, this is a memorable event shared among us primary classmates. Whenever we had gatherings in later years this topic hardly can be avoided hahah. We like to tease among us how many stings one had, or where they escaped after running off the field.

Talk about the field and the bees, it's said that the bee's nest was disturbed thus causing the bees to switched to vigilant mode and we were the unfortunate ones to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Soon after that the nest was destroyed by local council.
Few years after that, the field no longer can be seen as the (then) new school building was being build on top of it.

Well, there goes the Tale of Bees. At least, something interesting happened, though the stings hurt!