Plan Bee has been in operation and increasingly refined since Maryann of LF Ranch told us that all Arizona bees were africanised to one degree or another and, therefore, potential killer bees.
Plan A is to avoid getting in a fight with the bees in the first place: no swatting at them or killing them, so they don’t send off the HELP! pheromones which attract the swarm. If that fails, you need a Plan Bee.
When I first suggested to Glenn that, if under attack, we put the tent up and dive inside, he couldn’t stop laughing for hours, because we’d be stung to death long before we could finish putting it up and, on reflection, I thought it was silly too, so we put the idea on the private joke shelf and forgot about it. …Until about a month ago, when it was all over the Arizona news that some other hikers were attacked on Echo Mountain. One fell to his death trying to run away, while the other two were stung over 300 times each before being rescued by helicopter. We decided we needed a solid Plan Bee.
We now carry the main part of the tent in the open front pocket of Glenn’s backpack, with the doors part unzipped. In the event of attack, we just have to throw off our packs, pull it out, jump inside on our backs, holding the tent roof up with our feet and finish zipping up the doors. We even carry snack bars in our pockets, as attacks can apparently last from ten minutes to 10 hours. We can do it in under 30 seconds.
Maybe the tent idea wasn’t so silly afterall 🙂 …and I’m very, very pleased that none of you could see us rehearsing Plan Bee in the Superstitions!!!
Good plan! Hope you don’t need it, but always good to be prepared! Would love to see a video of your Plan Bee drill…call it “Code Honey”:) and use it for other purposes too:) JK
can they sting through the tent material ? If you are wearing clothes over all of your body why not a face mask and gloves.
Good thought, but unfortunately, while they can sting us through our clothes, they can’t get us through the tent, as we wouldn’t be touching the sides…