Friday, June 20, 2008

Little and bombus vandykei

Last night Little was playing in the courtyard when she started crying. Daddy went to go get her. She sounded pretty sad, so Daddy took her inside.

Little: There were two bees crawling on my face!
Daddy: Did they both sting you?
Little: Yeah, both bees.

After this she actually got pretty chipper. She seemed to think it was pretty fun that bees had landed on her face.

The bees stung her between the eyes and above her lip on the left side. You can see both weals in this picture:


Her lip puffed right up almost immediately. She didn't seem to mind; she thought her big lip was a bee crawling on her face and that seemed like fun.


When she woke up in the morning her lip was almost back to normal but her eyes were puffed up, especially the left one. She looks almost entirely unlike Little! [she's still very sleepy in these pictures... she takes a long time to wake up like Daddy]


It's harder for us to handle her puffy face than it has been for her to handle the stings. She's pretty oblivious, except when she feels a bump on her face and then she insists it's just a bee sitting there. Bees are one of her favorite things and it doesn't seem like this will change any of that.

The irony? It's the same species of bumblebee that Daddy spent a couple hours photographing last friday night at Montebello. Daddy found a dead one right next to a hole in the sidewalk that the neighborhood kids claim is the bee's home, and where they said Little was playing when she started crying. Bumblebees live in small colonies in holes in the ground so that makes sense. It could have been one bee that stung her twice since bumblebees don't have barbed stingers like honey bees and so they don't die when they can sting and thus can sting multiple times. This bee could have died from Little smacking it. Maybe we shouldn't tell her that...

Addendum:
On our way back from the garden today we saw a bee getting torn apart by ants on the path. Little obviously has no hard feelings:

Little: Here you go, bee, eat this! [setting a squash down right on top of the bee]

2 comments:

Elizabeth said...

What a brave Little! Owchie!

Have you put Baking Soda on them? I remember that being really soothing on a bad sting...

How funny that she still loves bees!

Martie said...

She's so brave! Poor little face.

She's still beautiful!