Little Margaret, daughter of Wells County Deputy Sheriff Charles Pierce, may not have been the county’s most noted naturalist, but she learned all she knew by observation and experience. Angelkeep relied a lot on those two teaching elements, just like sweet little Margaret.
Margaret was at the home of her grandfather, Lancaster Township’s John Pierce, and noticed bumblebees flying in and out of a knot hole in the weather boarding of Grandpa’s house. She decided she would close the hole. It would be best to first chase out all of the bees, or to her birds, that were inside. Using a quickly located hammer, she pounded on the knotty board. Bees began flying out. One alighted on Margaret’s neck and she ran screaming into the house. The bumblebee had burned her with its “hot feet.” The experience made her sick, requiring her return home. She learned a lesson. Henceforth Margaret ran for shelter at the sight of a bumblebee, “the bird with hot feet,” as she called them.
Angelkeep Journals’ writer had a similar experience with a bumblebee nest that had developed inside a partially crumbled cement block on the foundation of a farm home one mile east of Uniondale. The passing of a push style lawnmower seemed to agitate that nest. What a blessing it became the summer Dad hired an Amish crew to raise the house enough to place a new block foundation beneath. Those men found the nest. Of necessity, they destroyed the nest, but not before dodging quite a few of the “birds with hot feet,” as Margaret called them in the same county in 1908, about half a century earlier.
Angelkeep’s most serious encounter with bumblebees similarly happened in the past. Two decades ago neighbors provided grass clippings and leaves for Angelkeep’s makeshift compost bed. As some were being regathered, a line of defense bumblebees emerged from the base of the pile. They had found a cool location for their nest. Like Margaret of old, this Angelkeep gardener hastily withdrew, leaving a half-filled wheelbarrow to fend for itself. The ‘barrow was snagged three days later, and the nest area avoided the remainder of the season.
Yellow jacket nests became much more of an issue at Angelkeep than bumblebees. Carpenter bees, resembling bumblebees, also find Angelkeep a pleasurable home, but seem to cohabitate with the humans on much better terms.
Margaret’s Grandfather Pierce had his own story of the “birds with hot feet.” John Pierce was a bit wiser, being a senior citizen of 1908, complete with his own bumblebee experiences from living on a farm. The habitat for bumblebees afforded the “birds with hot feet” more of a chance for survival and propagation back in those days. Today’s loss of natural habitat as well as insecticides actually make the bumblebee a concern. They are a vital part of the pollinator force of nature. In 1908, the thought of eradicating all insects from the family’s lawn did not exist. Everyone knew those bees and other insects were essential for the autumn harvest from their orchards, fields, and gardens.
As a bumblebee flew near Grandfather Pierce he swiped at it with his derby hat. John imagined he’d killed it. Instead, he had caught the bee in his hat. As he placed it on his head he received a lively prick from the “hot feet.”
So the story went as Grandpa recalled it to Granddaughter Margaret.
He jerked the hat off in a hurry and the bee flew from the bald spot on his head. The center of his head revealed a location where the “bird” had left behind one of the “hot feet” partially buried into his scalp.
According to the family lore, preserved forever thanks to the Bluffton Chronicle newspaper, John’s son was heartless enough to laugh at him.
A modern version of Grampa Pierce befell on Angelkeep a year ago. Angelkeep’s variation dealt with extended family assisting with removal of large chunks of firewood, too large for Angelkeep patio pan fires. Yellow jackets replaced bumblebees in this story. The hat was leather cowboy, not a derby hat. The “hot feet” stings to Tom numbered two, not one. Everyone near Tom copied his lively “hot feet step” while dancing away from the discovered yellow jacket nest, including yours truly.
And that’s the story of Angelkeep’s most recent encounter with Lancaster Township’s “birds with hot feet.”
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
