I remember this last Spring, riding with my neighbor, his girlgriend, and my daughter. We were riding near trail 100 in Phoenix’s North Mtn. Preserve. While my daughter (13) is pretty aggressive on her bike, she is a girly girl at heart. One of the things that makes her freak the most is bees. I had to leave her on the trail and backtrack, to help my neighbor’s girlfriend with a bike problem. The repair took about 10 minutes, and as we were heading towards my daughter, who was out of site at the time due to terrain, we heard this low humming sound. It reminded me of the sound B52’s make in war movies that I’ve seen. As we make our way over this small crest we see this cloud of bees (at least 40 to 50 thousand by my estimate) flying over where my daughter was. We rushed over to find her lying face down under her bike. She did great I thought. Usually she freaks out, runs around, and screams at the top of her lungs at the sight of just one bee. It was cool to see her instincts kick in and see her stay calm through it all. I’ve never seen such a huge swarm before. These were Africanized bees looking for a new nest. They were hovering probably 15 to 20 feet above the ground, so no one was stung. Pretty amazing sight though.
Good times on the trail, always!