Bee Wars: A New Hope

The bees were in trouble. I don't mean bees as a species, though that's also true. I mean my bees. Our bees. The bees in the beehive my roommate Jennie and I bought just three weeks ago. I heard Jennie shout from the yard. I ran outside to see what was wrong. About fifteen or twenty wasps were attacking the hive, stinging the bees to death, hauling them away for food, and trying to sneak inside the hive. I didn't know what to do about it.


Standing in front of the hive, I felt a little like Luke Skywalker as he stood in front of the Emperor at the climax of Return of the Jedi. Part of me wanted to remain neutral and not give in to my anger, causing me to do something I would undoubtedly regret. Another part of me raged as I watched my friends get killed, one by one, by this more powerful, swarming menace. These bees are my friends, and there I was, not doing a thing except watching them literally get torn to shreds.

The minutes ticked on. More mad at myself than anything, I wished I knew more about beekeeping. Did the bees really need my help? Are attacks like this part of the natural way of things? Can I justify killing the wasps, which are a vital part of the ecosystem as well? These wasps just wanted a meal so they could keep on living themselves, and goodness knows there's plenty of bees in my hive.

But these are my bees. When we bought this hive, the destiny of these bees inextricably linked itself to Jennie and me. The world's bees are dying. But not mine. Not today. In a strange way, I'm just a very big bee in this hive. I'm a guard bee. I'm an attack bee. I'm a Jedi master bee. Don't mess with my hive.

So I grabbed a stick. Actually, it was a discarded foot-and-a-half-long scrap of old hardwood flooring from my home remodeling project. Perfect. Reduce, reuse, recycle, we environmentalists always say. "This fits 'reuse,' right?" I said to Jennie as I snuck up beside the meelee. A wasp near the back of the swarm ventured my direction, separated from the pack and flying low to the ground. Wham. It became a very flat wasp. Wham, wham. Another flat wasp. Wham, a near miss and a counterattack by the wasp, causing a sudden but brief retreat on my part. Wham, wham, wham. Again and again, I leapt into the fray with my board, smashed away at the enemy, and quickly retreated.

In twenty minutes, it was all over. The wasps' bodies lay scattered about the front of the hive, just as in Star Wars when Luke and his friends finally defeated the Emperor and his countless storm troopers in their demolished TIE fighter fleet. The enemy now vanquished, harmony returned to the galaxy. The bees quickly calmed down and went back to their normal bee business. As if they knew I fought for them, not a single bee stung me or even so much as buzzed my face throughout the entire battle, despite my proximity to the hive throughout the ordeal. Member of the hive I am. A Jedi bee I became.

Once it was over, my adrenaline from battle subsided a bit, and I felt a tinge of remorse for having killed nearly two dozen wasps. Jennie, watching from a few feet away the enitre time, said, "If the bees could swing a piece of hardwood flooring at the wasps, they'd do it. We should spear the dead wasp bodies on little thumbtacks around the hive as a warning." I may not have made the right decision to intervene, but she's totally right. The bees need help. The whole planet needs help. The time of impartiality is over, and I'm in this fight until it's won.