When we finally got Abigail into the clinic in Puerto Jimenez the next day, her condition had stabilized. It had been a long night of extracting stingers with tweezers, so we were relieved to be in the company of doctors and nurses, even if it was a backwoods operation. Other than tropical light slanting through the windows and onto the aquamarine cinder-block walls, I do not recall too many specific details.
I do remember my sister sobbing into the waiting room. “They won’t tell me what they’re doing to me,” she said. Apparently I went back and told the doctor that they would need to tell her what they were doing to her -- and that we would be with her in her room. My wife says the doctor looked a little scared.
We spent the rest of the visit by her bed, and there were no further issues at the clinic. Abigail -- though puffy and sore -- was OK in the end. Afterwards Kerry’s step-father was so freaked out that he wired us some money to stay in a nice resort-type place for a week. We hadn’t bathed in warm water or slept on comfortable beds for months.
My sister Abigail had come for a visit on her spring break, and the plan was to backpack into Corcovado National Park on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. To get to the the ranger station, you can take a pick-up -- but it’s only driveable at low-tide. We’d shared a ride with a group of three (was it four?) Israeli tourists. We’d checked in about the same time, and headed down the beach about the same time.
A light drizzle would fade in and out, and we’d have our ponchos on and off all morning. About an hour into our trek we decided to stop for a swim in a beautiful little freshwater stream. Just a quick dip, air-dry, re-boot, and we were good to go. I think about this part all of the time: the time. That fifteen minutes made all the difference. I think about how the celestial bodies aligned just so on that day to pull a rotten tree full of Africanized bees onto the beach between the Israeli tourists and us. The universe operates on predictable physical laws, right? At least gravity does.
The hybridization of African “killer” bees and their movement into Central America was governed, at least in part, by physical law. In 1956 a “prominent” Brazilian geneticist named Warwick Kerr introduced the first African honey bee to the Americas because he thought he could produce a new breed of honey bee, one which would have the favorable African quality of high honey production, but without the unfavorable “defensive” behavior they tend to exhibit.
Of course we know the end of the story: the bees did not drop their aggressive behavior, nor were they content to stay put. By 1990 Africanized, or more technically, hybridized “killer” bees had made it as far north as the Rio Grande. How that occurred is a wee bit murky.
Kerr did successfully create a hybrid bee, one that produced more honey. In October of 1957 he had a total of 29 queens in various hive boxes with “queen excluders,” screens that allow the workers access to the hive but prevent the larger queens from escaping. And some wandering beekeeper, according to Kerr, came by and removed them. Of the 29 queens, 26 escaped with small swarms. Kerr hoped they wouldn’t survive in the wild, or at least become more domesticated by interbreeding with the already abundant European honey bee.
At last check, the bees have made it as far north as southern Utah.
I remember the downed tree laid down perpendicular to the beach. I remember the sound of the swarm I remember thinking, man, these are some loud flies The rest is a whirl.
The bees attacked us, exhibiting their famous “defensive behaviors.” Basically, Kerry and I jumped into tidal pools for protection, my sister didn’t, and that made all the difference. The startled Israelis, still within shouting distance, had tossed her a can of OFF!. We eventually got away from the fallen tree/hive with our packs, and decided to make our way back to the ranger station.
After thinking that we were on the backside of our ordeal, Abigail began to get woozy. When we removed her pack and looked at her back, we saw hundreds on hundreds of stings. If we had constellations, she had whole universes. If my sister were a smaller woman, she might have not handled all of that venom in her system. We freaked out. And then we went to work.
We spent hours removing stinger after stinger with tweezers to prevent more of the toxins from working into her body. She went in and out of consciousness. We got some anti-histamines into her, thank goodness. At one point she lost her sight.
Because of the tide, there was no evacuation until morning. So it wasn’t until mid-morning the next day when we arrived at the clinic where Abigail was given fluids, antihistamines and antibiotics.
I don’t blame the bees for attacking us, for exhibiting “defensive behaviors” they’ve passed on for decades, and I don’t even blame Warnick Kerr for bringing them over from South Africa. The world has been getting smaller ever since humans became the dominant species. Every cultural interaction we humans have had, just about every conflict and treaty has been about the goods, the resources and how we’re going to get them. And seems like every conflict spins off some unintended consequences.
Kerr himself was an import. His parents were Scots who immigrated to The US, and then eventually to Brazil where they had a son. Same goes for the Africanized bee, an opportunist as much as any human.
As it happens, the European honey bee is in great peril here in the Americas. Due to what’s mysteriously called Colony Collapse Disorder, both natural and domestic populations are crashing. Farmers now rely heavily on domestic bees to pollinate their orchards and fields. As it turns out, some scientists are looking to breed the European bee with their hearty African counterpart. And if we can make that can happen, I’d be willing to chalk it up for a draw with the killer bee.
No comments:
Post a Comment