Soloist wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 6:49 pm
Ken wrote: ↑Fri Apr 05, 2024 5:27 pm
I once defeated a military checkpoint in Guatemala with a load of killer bees.
Let me know if you want the full story.
Wife: Yes. It sounds like the plot of a bee movie.
OK here goes.
When I was fresh out of college I volunteered for the Peace Corps and was sent to Guatemala as part of a beekeeping project. It was 1987 and the country was just coming out of a long civil war so still extremely militarized. The Africanized "killer" bees were also moving northward through Central America towards the US and some Agricultural lobby in the US got Congress and the USDA to fund the ridiculous idea of building a bee barrier across Central America to prevent it. The futility of such an effort became readily apparent but the project was already funded and we transitioned into working as regular Ag extensionists to teach local beekeepers how to adapt to managing the Africanized bee which was replacing their more tame Italian bees. I was paired with a local young counterpart with the ministry of ag named Pedro and one of our tasks was to set up a model apiary where we could teach classes.
We found a local coffee plantation that was willing to give us a small terraced hillside to build the apiary. And at the same time the previous Peace Corps training center was closing and moving to a different town and they had about 10 bee hives they needed to get rid of and wanted us to take off their hands. So we finagled and managed to arrange to borrow a ministry of ag pickup on the given day that we planned to move the hives. And then went there the night before to seal them all off. Normally in the US when you move beehives you just seal off the entrance with screens the night before and then move them the next morning when they are all trapped inside the hive. So far so good.
The next morning very bright and early at sunrise we arrived at the training center with the truck ready to move the hives and discovered bees all over the place. They were just pouring out from under the hives. It turned out that these hives were not built to regular US standards with tongue and groove bottoms and such. The hive bottoms were just boards nailed together that had big enough cracks so the bees could freely exit. Unlike US beehives, these weren't built to ever be moved.
We looked at each other, wondered what to do. Pedro reminded me that we weren't likely to get the truck again anytime soon. So we said, screw it and loaded up all the hives in the back of the pickup with angry bees buzzing all over the place. We were fully suited up so fine. And then we took off for the apiary which was about 10 miles away on the other side of the town of Antigua. It was still early and we skirted around the outskirts as much as possible. But Antigua is a colonial town with cobblestone streets and the hives of Africanized bees bouncing around in back were getting extremely agitated.
But we got through the town in one piece and were taking a back country road up to the coffee plantation when we came around the corner and ran into an ad-hoc Army road block. The army was always doing this sort of thing, basically to "assert control" over the local population and extract bribes when possible. We rolled up in our bright red government truck with DIGESEPE printed on the side (Direccion General de Servicios Pecuarios) or "Department of Livestock Services". I cracked the window and shouted to the soldiers blocking the road that we were carrying bees and they should let us through. The soldier waved his gun at us and put up his hand to stop. Then an older officer walked slowly up to the side of the vehicle to do the usual paperwork inspection, looking for some flaw in the paperwork that he could use to extract a bribe. When suddenly the solders started hopping around and swatting themselves. The officer too suddenly yelped and swatting himself like crazy as tens of thousands of
very very angry and agitated bees were pouring out of the back of the truck, looking for anything to take out their anger on. It turns out cobblestone streets and Africanized bees don't mix. I rolled the window back up and Pedro and I watched in amusement as a whole squad of soldiers went crashing pell-mell into the surrounding forest and coffee fields screaming.
30 seconds later we were all alone on the side of the road with an empty army truck and army jeep with a machine gun on it and no soldiers to be seen anywhere. I looked at Pedro and said? What do you think? Should we just go? He was cracking up so hard he couldn't answer but nodded yes. So we continued on, found the plantation and unloaded the hives. Then we thought. What should we do? We can't go back the same way, we are going to be so screwed if we encounter that same squad of soldiers. So we sat around the plantation all day long with the elderly German farmer who's family had built the plantation and listened to his endless stories about the old days while the maids served us coffee and food. Until eventually it was dusk and we were brave enough to backtrack. There was really no other way to go to get back without driving 100 km out of our way. So we braved it. When we passed by the location of the roadblock there was nothing there. The next morning we drove the truck back to Esquintla (a town in another department where it had come from) and then never told anyone else what had happened. We never did hear what had happened to those soldiers.
Here is the apiary after we had set it up and that is Pedro
This is what the Peace Corps does in other countries? Sending murderous killer bees after hostile armies? I think I’d rather face a firing squad. Were you all in white bee suits? My phone isn’t loading the picture so I’ll have to wait till I can use the laptop.