An allergy made me fear bees and wasps. Now they're my partners.
Our garden is teeming with flying insects this summer, which is a huge plus for pollinating plants and controlling unwanted pests
When I was 5 years old I was stung by a hornet (or two or three) while swinging on a swing set outside Gibson Cottage, the lakeside home my parents rented during our annual vacation in Michigan. It seems the local power company guy stopped by to read the meter, saw the nest and sprayed it. For whatever reason the hornets blamed me.
I don’t remember much about it, though I do have a vague memory of sitting in my mother’s lap as my father raced our station wagon down the county highway, windows wide open, toward the emergency room. As my mother told it, my face had swelled so much I “looked like a pig.” It’s a lasting image. I wish my parents had taken a picture but of course they weren’t thinking about documenting the ordeal. They were thinking about saving my life.
Thus began a decades-long relationship between me and stinging insects, specifically honeybees, yellow jackets, hornets and wasps. My mom took me to an allergist in New York City, who put me on a regimine of shots to desensitize me for any future stings. I’d go to our pediatrician, get the shot a from what seemed to be an enormous metal syringe, and a lollipop – or “lolly” as Dr. Heller called it – for the effort. (Dr. Heller also did house calls with a big black leather bag when we were sick. He also fed the squirrels by putting peanuts on the porch just outside his office door.)
Anyway, the shots ended after a while and all was well until I was stung again while living in Brooklyn when I was in my 20s. The reaction wasn’t life-threatening, but I was stung on my right forearm and my left shoulder and back swelled and itched like the dickens. A reaction to a bee sting beyond the immediate area of the sting is always a concern as it could be the sign of a more serious, systemic reaction.
A doctor prescribed an EpiPen that I carried with me for years while I worked overseas as a journalist. I wasn’t stung again, though I have to say I always tried to keep my distance from bees. I had a healthy respect for them, though not really a deathly fear. In fact, in the early 1990s I spent a day traveling with a Romanian beekeeper in Transylvania for a story on the transient apiculturists who could be seen on the backroads of Eastern Europe back then. They pulled their colonies on wagons attached to horses or tractors or in some cases cars, stopping for days at a time to let the bees take in the local pollen before moving on. In this case his bees were feasting on the pollen from nearby Linden trees.
(There’s a wonderful novel featuring such a beekeeper called Grey Bees by the Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov. It’s set in the no-man’s land between Russian and Ukrainian forces in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.)
All of which brings me to pollinators, whose ranks include the hundreds of bees that are flitting about our gardens this summer. Along with flies, wasps, butterflies and who knows what else, the bees bring joy and life to the garden and are the facilitators of the sex lives of our plants.
It makes me wish I knew entomology better so I could identify more of the flying wonders. Among the butterflies we’ve identified so far are Monarchs, Tiger Swallowtails, American Coppers and either Black or Spicebush Swallowtails. We’ve also identified bumblebees, carpenter bees, sweat bees, honey bees, yellow jackets and, more recently, Great Black Wasps that have been swarming all over our two stands of mountain mint since they flowered. I’d never seen them before. They’re up to an inch long and solid black, which makes them seem all the more ominous. Katie calls them Darth Vaders. Apparently they can give you a nasty sting though they tend to mind their own business when I walk by them. That’s not the case for insects like crickets, katydids and grasshoppers, which the female black wasp will paralyze with her stinger and carry back to the brood, where they will be fed upon – alive it seems – for up to a week. Who knew an innocent little search on the Internet would lead to a passage out of a horror novel! Read more at your peril here.
Like Monarch butterflies, the black wasps are supported by common milkweed which grows here and there in our garden. (There are some flying around the mountain mint in the video clip here.)
There are apparently more than 100,000 species of wasps around the world. In addition to the role they play in pollination, many feed on aphids, flies, caterpillars and other garden pests. They are vital to a garden’s success.
That said, the ominous looking black wasps do give me a shiver, I admit, reminding me of that time I was stung by their cousins decades ago. I spend a lot of time in the garden and feel lucky I’ve not been stung more often. (I’m certain I’ll now step on a hive!) But here’s the thing:
About 20 years ago, Katie convinced me to see an allergist in downtown Washington and get myself re-tested. Henry Fishman, the allergist, did the familiar test of pricking my forearm with venom from each member of the bee and wasp family alongside a placebo. We watched to see which would swell and redden. Wouldn’t you know I was still allergic to honeybees, yellow jackets, hornets and wasps, the same Fearsome Foursome (or threesome if you group hornets with wasps) that I tested allergic to back when I was 5.
For the next five years I walked from the Washington Post newsroom about seven blocks up K Street to Dr. Fishman’s office once a month. I’d get a shot, wait for 20 minutes in case there was a reaction and then would be allowed to leave. No lolly. After 60 or more such visits, if I’m counting right, I was re-tested and declared allergy free. I got myself tested again about five years ago with the same result, though I still have an EpiPen, or a more modern version of it.
So now it’s just me and the bees, and the birds, and the flowers and the trees. When we bought our home here in western Massachusetts it already was blessed with several large perennial borders filled with native plants that attract pollinating insects. We’ve added more natives such as the mountain mint, along with wild bergamot, butterfly weed, coneflowers, hyssop, goldenrod and Joe Pye. It’s all paying off this summer. Plant it and the good bugs will come.