NINE: Traveling with honey bees

This is a story from April 1983. I was 24 years old, single, living alone in Jesup, GA - about an hour from Jekyll Island and the Georgia coast. Every other weekend, I traveled north - about a five-hour drive - to see Vicki. As I've mentioned in other posts, we either met at her grandparent's house in West Point, GA., in my hometown of Cumming, GA, or in Athens, where she was in school at the University of Georgia.

At the time, I drove a 1973, two-door Chevrolet Chevelle, dark green with a black hardtop. It leaked water in the back seat during heavy rainstorms. I once threw down some dirt and Kentucky 31 and actually grew fescue back there. That Chevelle had no air-conditioning. When I bought it in 1976 it only had an AM radio, but I had since put in an AM/FM with Cassette. My friend Steve Taylor made me a mixed tape when I moved to south Georgia. That tape contained everything from Zeppelin to ELP to the Beatles.

You need to buy and read my book, The Beauty Queen & The Reporter (sheesh, it's only 12 bucks). If you read that book you will know that Vicki lived with Larry and Martha Chastain during her senior year of high school (in Cumming) and their home remained a landing spot for weekends away from college.

Now, on with the story.

Larry Chastain had a neighbor, Clyde Wade. They wanted to be, beekeepers. These two men knew I was coming north on Easter weekend, in April that year, to see Vicki and family. They also knew that The York Bee Company, there in Jesup, sold honey bees to people all over. Well, Larry had this idea. He would pay me $100 to drive the bees home from Jesup to Cumming, and save a lot of time and money going to get them himself.

"This lady, Pat York, says you can carry the bees in the backseat of your car," Larry told me over the telephone. "They are in some kind of box."

"No problem," I told Larry. Anything for a friend. I used to be like that. Now, I ask a lot more questions before serving my friends.

So that Good Friday afternoon, leaving work a little early, I drove to the bee company.

Not one, not two, but seven beehives were loaded in the back seat of the Chevelle. Yes, Larry was right. The bees were in boxes, but the boxes were screened-in boxes. I guess some stray bees, just flying around in the air, longed to go with their kin in the boxes so they were buzzing or flying or swarming (maybe they were doing the serious, I don't know) around in my car.

"If one gets on you, just be still," someone offered as advice. "It won't sting you if you just blow it off." I remember thinking, 'I've got to drive five hours and be perfectly still?'

Maybe you've hauled honey bees in your car, but in case you haven't let me tell you something. They are loud. The noise from all that buzzing was so loud that I couldn't even hear my car's engine. But, off I drove - about to spend the next five hours driving with seven hives of bees in the backseat . . . and three on my arm. At one point, I had four on my shirt.

When I got up the road to Baxley, GA, I stopped at a red light. Upon stopping, I noticed the buzzing got louder. Then, I wondered if that old adage was true. You know the one about "music soothing the savage beast?" So, I jacked up the volume on that mixed tape, and Robert Plant started screaming . . .

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled
It's been a long time since I did the Stroll
Oh, let me get it back let me get it back 
Let me get it back from where I come from

It worked. As the music went up, the bees calmed down. As the music went down, the bees got loud. You may dispute that, but, friend, you weren't in that Chevy with a honey bee crawling over the crotch of your blue jeans. I kept the beasts at bay by keeping the music loud.

Because I didn't have air-conditioning, I had to ride with the windows rolled down. So every time I stopped along the two-lane, in places like Hazlehurst, Lumber City, and McCrae, a few bees said "See you later!" and found a new home there. I was like Johnny Appleseed of bee-transportation.

I need you to understand, too, that those bees got in harmony with that mixed tape, and as we rolled up I-75 it was like a choir in the back seat. Two on the dash, I swear, might have been dancing. I stopped for gas just south of Atlanta, and the station had a little coffee shop. They also pumped gas the old-fashioned way. I liked stopping there because I could run to the bathroom and grab a grilled cheese (in that order) all while my tank was being filled. Except for this night, I returned to the car and the attendant said, "I ain't getting near that car. You got bees in there. Pump your own damn gas."

It was pretty funny, and as I pumped the gas, he said, "Bo, you are a brave soul."

I told him it wasn't much different than hauling flies - except there were thousands of them and they could sting, and potentially gang up and kill you. I had never seen flies do that. I wasn't sure how many bees were in those seven boxes, but I guessed thousands.

I finally arrived at Larry's, and he and Clyde removed those bees from the backseat. I'm not sure whatever happened to their bee-keeping venture, but I got my hundred bucks and a story to tell, well you, and my grandchildren one day.

Wouldn't you know that the next day, I jumped in my car and, yep, I immediately got stung. It was the only time.

www.scottdvaughan.com