My uncle’s kept bees for 19 years and still gets asked, at every single family dinner, why he bothers with something that just stings people. The truth is, a peer-reviewed study in PMC found that bees are behind roughly a third of the food humans eat worldwide and without them, most of those crops just don’t grow at the scale we’re used to. Another study, this one from Scientific Reports, found bee-pollinated crops come out heavier, better quality, and last longer on the shelf than crops pollinated any other way. And populations keep dropping every year anyway. So the people who take up beekeeping, who plant wildflowers instead of another patch of grass, or who protect the people they love from every single sting, they’re doing something that actually matters.
My husband knows I’m allergic to bees. One bite can put me in the hospital. He’s been carrying my EpiPen for 11 years. 2 weeks ago, while driving I found 3 big bees in my car. I pulled over shaking. There was no EpiPen in the car. Turns out, my husband took them on purpose to get them tested and refilled, since he’d noticed the expiration date creeping up on all 3 while cleaning out the glove box that same morning, and he didn’t want to just swap them out without making sure I had a backup in my purse first.
He’d meant to tell me before he left for work, even had a sticky note written out on the dashboard, but I’d grabbed my keys from the hook instead of my usual spot and missed it entirely. When I called him, panicked, pulled over on the shoulder with 3 bees somehow trapped inside my car, he was already at the pharmacy picking up the fresh ones, laughed with relief once he realized I was just scared and not actually stung, and said he’d meet me at the gas station two exits up with a working pen before I even finished explaining what happened.
He got there in 11 minutes. Had 2 new EpiPens in hand, one for the car, one for my purse, plus a third for his own glove box “just in case I’m the one who finds you first next time.” 11 years of managing expiration dates I didn’t even think to track myself, refilling prescriptions before I noticed they were close, keeping a spare in his own car in case mine ever failed. I married a man who treats my allergy like his own responsibility to carry, and somehow, after 11 years, I still didn’t know the half of what that actually looked like until 3 bees and an empty glove box showed me.
WAS THIS BEFORE, OR AFTER, THEY BEGAN CHARGING $5K A PEN? YOU DO NOT "LEAVE A NOTE" WHEN YOU TAKE ALL OF SOMEONE'S MEDICATION AWAY, NO MATTER WHAT. YOU MAKE SURE THEY ARE AWAKE, AND COHERENT, AND YOU, PERSONALLY, "TELL" THEM ABOUT IT. IN THOSE 11 MINUTES, SHE COULD HAVE BEEN STUNG, AND OR "PASSED". NOT SMART, AT ALL. FUNNY HOW THE "VERY DAY" YOU "DON'T" HAVE A "WORKING" EPI-PEN, THREE BEES END UP IN YOUR CAR. 🤔??
As someone who has the same allergy... its something you rarely use so u dont often think about the dates on them
NOT IF YOU HAVE EVER BEEN STUNG, BEGORE. AND BEES DON'T USUALLY "SHOW UP" THE ONE DAY YOUR EPI-PEN IS GONE.
Lazy and complacent.
Bees don't bite they sting.
Why wouldn’t you keep track of your epi pens yourself? I’m on 17 different medications because I had a double lung transplant 6 years ago. They wouldn’t even release me u til I knew how to handle my meds amd be able to monitor them myself. Grow tf up and start taking responsibility for your medications. What would you do if your husband wasn’t around? Geez
My thought's exactly!!
DOES IT NOT CONCERN "ANYONE" THAT HE "TOOK" ALL THE PENS. THEN 3 BEES, "SHOW UP" IN HER CAR, THAT VERY MORNING? MORE SUSPICIOUS, THAN ANYTHING ELSE, IMO.
What the hell is wrong with some of your people? Screaming for divorce? Blaming the husband for any of this? Y'all are some bitter and unhappy people. He was literally performing a life-saving duty for her that she should have been doing for herself. According to you he should have just left everything well enough alone so that if she did get stung, she'd reach for an EpiPen that was expired or actually no good because of being subjected to such intense heat or cold from being left in a car, and she would have died.
Wonderful
Kate you cop on to yourself
He laughed? Come on that’s not funny. He could communicate better.
Thats so sweet of him.
divorce his Ah
You will be happier if you go ahead and send yourself to heaven/hell.
SPEAKING FROM '"EXPERIENCE"? I DON'T LIKE WHAT M J SAYS, MOST OF THE TIME. I DO NOT HOWEVER THINK YOUR "SUGGESTION" IS FUNNY, OR APPROPRIATE. PEOPLE LIKE "YOU", AND THOSE COMMENTS, ARE NO BETTER THAN THE ONES YOU "DISAGREE" WITH. YOU ARE NOT, AND HAVE NEVER BEEN, "BETTER" THAN ANYONE ELSE, SO DON'T TRY PRETENDING YOU ARE. "SPAWN" IS PART OF YOUR TAG, I HOPE IT'S NOT FACTUAL.
I'm so sorry Mari. It must have been harder on you than most.
Bees don't bite, they sting
Why are some of you putting the teary laugh emoji bees are no laughing matter
Bees don’t bite.
Bees do bite Brian & they hurt like a b...h well actually they sting you 🦂 but did you know after they sting you they supposedly die?
For everyone who wants to blame the husband; this is HER allergy - thus HER responsibility to carry a pen, check where they are, expiration dates, (etc.) and not his… This is her LIFE PARTNER, her HUSBAND & your trying to blame him for bees getting into a car… seriously?😒
I think y’all got too much imagination or have watched too many movies 😉
Thank you! Yes, this is all on her. She should be monitoring her medication, not him
Husband should not have allowed bees into car, he should be ashamed of himself.
IKR? I AM JUST SAYING, "COINCIDENCES" LIKE THAT, DO NOT REALLY HAPPEN.
A little funny how 3 bees turned up at that same time he took your epipens.
I run a small wildflower farm, the messy kind, looks more like an accident than an actual business most of the year. Local beekeeper showed up my first spring, asked if he could stick three hives at the edge of my property, said we’d split whatever honey came off it.
Said yes mostly because I was curious, had no clue what I was actually agreeing to. That summer my whole flower yield basically doubled, fuller blooms than I’d ever gotten. He explained it afterward, all his bees doing pollination work I didn’t even know I was missing without them around. Meanwhile he’s getting some of the richest honey he’s had in years, all from foraging my specific wildflower mix.
Neither of us thought it’d turn into anything past one good summer. 5 years later those hives are just a permanent thing out there now, my yields have never been better, and every jar he brings me back tastes exactly like my own field. Wasn’t expecting any of that from three boxes of bees I barely understood saying yes to.
I get what you were trying to convey ❤️ but I had to laugh at the phrase "every jar he brings me back tastes exactly like my own field" as I pictured a person on all 4s in the field munching on stalks of wildflowers- a few beautiful blooms at the corner of their mouth - like a cow in pasture 😂❤️
My grandfather’s kept bees behind his house for like 32 years now. Started the whole thing because my grandma loved wildflowers, wanted something that’d keep that back meadow blooming instead of just mowing it down like everyone else on the road did. She passed a while back. He kept the hives going anyway, said it was the only way he still knew how to talk to her some days.
Last spring his hands got too shaky for the frames, called me up sounding kind of embarrassed about it, asked if I could take the 2 hives closest to the house for the season. I knew nothing. Zero. He walked me through the whole thing over the phone, couldn’t show me in person anymore, but still rattled off exactly which wildflower seeds to scatter every spring, same mix he’d always used, so the bees would stick around and the meadow would look the way grandma always wanted.
First jar I got out of it, drove it straight over, didn’t keep a drop for myself. He held it up to the light for way longer than you’d think a jar of honey deserves, then said it tasted just like hers used to. Same flowers, same dirt basically. Still doing it every season now. He still calls to tell me what to plant. Think some part of him just needed to know that meadow wasn’t gonna go quiet on him.
Do you keep bees, plant wildflowers, or love someone who does? Tell us your story and don’t miss this gardening article as well: 10 Gardening Moments That Teach Us Self-Care and Happiness Are Still Thriving in Every Home This September
