Learning Peoples Phobias

Since coming out to my family as a Bee Keeper I have discovered far more phobias than I had noticed before. My brother and sister in law appear to be extreme bee phobes. Both for good reasons, my sister in law accidentally inhaled a bee as a child and nearly died. My brother breaks out in hives from top to bottom with a bee sting, at least he did, he hasn't been stung in 20+ yrs, but he's unwilling to see what would happen now. A shocking lack of curiousity on his part in my opinion. ;-) Since he is my brother I've been getting a good deal of entertainment out of this phobia. If anyone knows how to send a box legally through the mail that will buzz like angry bees please let me know.

Yesterday I attended two club meetings. One was a plant group and when I mentioned bee keeping two people actually leaned away from me as if I had suddenly become contagious. I was surprised plant nuts would be bee phobes, especially anyone obsessed enough to belong to a single species club. I am assuming they will not be attending the next club picnic held at our house.

The next meeting I was bored and sitting in the back reading a bee book. When I got up to grab a drink I noticed the gal sitting near me pick up my book to see what it was, she actually violently dropped the book with a look of horror. That elicited enough interest from people who saw her reaction that I had a couple good conversations with people who liked bees. One older gentleman remembered his father keeping bees in straw skeps in Ireland.

Talking about peoples terror of the gentle honey bee usually gets someone to admit other types of phobias. A coworker won't drink out of containers he can't see into after seeing someone stung on the lip by a wasp as a child. He cannot lift a can of pop to his mouth without choking.

A friend of mine already refuses to visit my house because of the abundance of garter snakes in my yard. Something I'm quite proud of since it shows my gardens ecology to be diverse and healthy. When I told her about keeping bees I expected her to be appalled, instead she was very interested and might come visit the bees on a cold rainy day when the snakes won't be out.

A neighbor down the road who works as a construction contractor has a phobia about stepping on sharp things. He doesn't know where it came from and hasn't been seriously hurt that he remembers, but it's definitely strong. He wears steel soled boots almost all year except when boating. People running around barefoot or in sandals make his skin crawl.

I myself have am a compulsive obsessive so have several strong phobias. While I love caving and will happily crawl into a natural cave the mere idea of a dirty nasty people filthy hole is enough to send me screaming away. My husbands job occasionally sends him into steam tunnels and inspection crawlways under buildings. He takes great glee in telling me about these journeys knowing I will be curled up screaming by the time he's done.

Parasites also drive over the edge. My animals are not allowed to have fleas! The varroa mites bees get are something I'm going to have to deal with. Bees crawling on me, no problem, mites on my bees, hysteria. If they invented little combs I could pick up each bee and brush them clean of mites, well, I'd go blind and be stung to death, but I'd probably try.




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