RUN, SISTER! RUN!

No, it’s not the Cass McCombs’s Run Sis Run’, but that of three little sisters…

REWIND…

It was the year 2001. My sisters and I had planned the outing perfectly. Not the party outing on your mind, but the outing to our father’s honeybee farm.
Dad had made sure he left without us on many occasions. Most times, he would say we were not ripe enough for the experience, but the curiosity in us, and maybe some adventure-triggering puberty hormones wouldn’t let us budge, so, we insisted to go with him on this very cool Saturday morning.

Dad had packed everything needed. He distributed the items to us, and in the sack, there were bee suits and shoes for two (my dad and my brother), because apparently, they were the ones going to do the harvesting mainly. Other items include dried coconut fiber, smoke spray, 5 pieces of 25litre paint buckets, and 5litre of water. He had a bike at the time, so, the five of us mounted the bike, and off we went… to the farm.

Now, here is the plan…

THE PLAN
Just so that we wouldn’t get attacked by the bees, because the bees wouldn’t give us their honey without a fight, dad said, so, the plan is,” I will go in there with your brother, fill the buckets with honeybee comb, then, I will place it close to the entrance where you can carry it and take it outside”. It was a mini forest, and there were monkeys in about tens, but we weren’t scared. It was an adventure Afterall.

Okay, that was a perfect plan,or so we thought.

Kitted and ready to move, we entered the forest and the colony we saw at first was scary. We weren’t close to them, so, it shouldn’t be a bother, however, just when my brother and dad started work, THE BATTLE BEGAN…

Run! They are right behind you! One of my sisters screamed. And, before I could say Jack, we headed for the deeper part of the forest. Snakes? Monkeys? We forgot all about them and just wanted to find a way out, however, suddenly, none of us remembered the route to the road, so, we kept running, deeper and deeper and deeper into the bush till we reached a dead end. At this point, we didn’t know if the bees were still on us or they had returned, we just kept running.

When we realized how lost we were, we started heading back to where we could hear footsteps. We located dad, stayed far away from them while trying to catch our breath, and then, suddenly, the bees came out en mass once more, and the running started once again, but, this time, with screams of No! That’s not the way. It’s the wrong route! Head back! Turn around! It was still us running and screaming. Then, my sister who was leading the race made a U-turn and headed in another direction that ended in... another dead end. We looked back and they were gone once more. This time, we just sat down to rest well after which we headed back to find our dad again.

Okay, we can get close to the buckets now. They are gone. In 1, 2, 3, sting! RUNNNN! My sister had been stung and her left eye was already doubling in size, but she didn’t wait oo. She kept running in circles with the two of us inside the mini forest until dad shouted out my name and instructed us to stay where we were. Did we listen? No. We went to look for him again. Thanks to the sun shining now, we could locate the way out of the forest. So, we ran out, laid flat on the tarred road trying to catch our breath.

Well, honeybee stings are medically healing. So, it’s a good thing she got stung. That was the way my sister consoled herself.

Few minutes later…
We went back because we had to fulfil our part of the process which was to carry the buckets containing the honeybee combs outside. We know our way out now, so, we won’t be running in circles anymore. My eldest sister led the journey, and in 3, 2, 1, sting! She got stung on her lower lip. Ah! I didn’t hear anything, but her scream, and instantly, I headed back outside, sat there and waited till they were done with the entire process.

What killed the cat? Curiosity they say.
Did we go back to the farm? Yes, we did, but this time, we were much more grown and had known the honeybee harvesting procedure.

All images are designed by me on Canva.