The Bear and the Bees
One day a bear is walking through the woods looking for honey. He travels long and far looking all through his usual forest but can't find any bee hives until he sees one at the top of a hill. He approaches the hive and doesn't hear any buzzing. Hoping they are either dead or sleeping, he sneaks up to the hive.
When he gets there, a bee flies out and shouts, "Halt!"
The bear replies, "Look, I am sure you have some honey to spare. Can you please give me some? I have traveled long and far looking for my fill today."
The bee shakes his head. "You will not be getting any honey here. If you try taking our honey you will surely die."
The bear laughs, "HA! You say I will be the one dead? Look how tiny and weak you are! Look how big I am! Surely if anyone dies here it will be you."
Suddenly, lightening strikes the tree and the smoke knocks out all the bees in the hive. Although shaken up, the bear regains his senses, cracks open the hive, and takes all the honey.
The bear retires to his lair with his honey and eats until he is fat. As he tastes the sweet nectar, he laughs about the bee's threats toward the bear's life.
"You think you can kill me for stealing your honey? HA! Look at the outcome now! The gods have spoken and knocked your entire hive unconscious for me to take your honey. Look who is laughing now!"
The bear, after stuffing himself with honey and getting it all over his face, falls into a deep sleep.
While asleep, the fleet of bees detect the smell of the honey coming from the bear's lair. They gather one by one outside of his home and wait until thousands of bees surround it. The bees all rush in at the same time and sting the bear hundreds of times. Other bees grab hold of the honey on his face and bring it back to their hive. The bear, after being attacked, lies dead in his lair. The bee wasn't lying when he said he would die.
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| Bear getting stung by bees sourced via Wikipedia |
Author's note:
In the original story, a coyote comes across the path of a snake. Both refuse to go around the other and the snake warns the coyote that if he steps across his path he will die. The coyote does it anyways and gets bit but doesn't feel it. He mocks the snake, goes to a lake, feels tired and dies. While I wanted to challenge myself to making a more short but sweet story like this one, I couldn't help myself but spice it up a bit. I loved the idea of making the characters a bear and bees and thought it would fit the theme of the story really well. I also found writing the ignorant dialogue for the bear very entertaining and fun!
Bibliography:
Great Plains: Coyote and Snake by Katharine Berry Judson
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Connor! Wow. You definitely changed this story a lot, and it is so creative. I would have never thought of changing the story to be about a bear and a bee and I certainly would have never chose the bee's to win. I also like how you gave detail to how the bear died, where it seemed in your notes, the coyote just died. Your story is really good and creative. Good luck finishing up!
ReplyDeleteConnor, I like how you added your own unique style to this story. I thought it was interesting how the Bear believed in the gods since he is an animal. The ending actually surprised me because I did not think the Bear would just die like that. The line that starts with “Other bees grab hold of…” I thought they were somehow going to drag the Bear back their hive and keep him as a prisoner or something.
ReplyDeleteHello Connor. Interesting short story. I wish it was a tad longer as far as what was happening to the bear in the cave. Something that bothered me is that thousands of bees gathered but the bear was only stung hundreds of times. A nice twist would have been that the bees stung him and sealed him into the cave to die. Made him die in a hive of his own without any honey or food he would starve on top of whatever the stings did to him.
ReplyDeleteI love how you made this story your own Connor! The twists were a nice way to change up the original story without going completely off the rails! You clearly really understood the original story so that you could make these creative changes! I know your a science major but your creative writing is pretty dang good! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHello, again! Once again I am impressed by one of your stories. I loved how you used the dialogue between the bear and the bees to build up to the climax of the story. It seems so lighthearted at first but then the bear actually is killed! Also, I liked the length of the story. I always catch myself being wordy and I appreciate how short and sweet this story really is.
ReplyDelete