how many AS folk fear bees and other little buggers?

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Bugs are nasty. 'Nuff said.

I have had soooooo many bad experiences with bugs of all kinds (especially since I'm some sort of incredible mosquito magnet) that I just wish they all died. Now, if I ever see a spider in my house, or just the web, I'll spray an entire can of raid on the spot, then get another two cans and spray the rest of the house.

That's how much I hate them.

I rather think a fear of creepy-crawlies is taught, rather than inborn. I have a HUGE Rusty-Knee Tarantula for a pet. In fact, a spider is my Totem Spirit; I have one tattooed on my right shoulder.

One autumn day, when I was little, I was turning over rocks bordering the garden to see when was under them. I found what I THOUGHT were dead bees, & brought them inside to add to my collection of the strange & unusual. They weren't dead OR bees. They were Yellow-Jacket wasps that had merely been immobilized by the cold. My Mom was about ready to kill me when those wasps thawed out & started flying around the house!

When I was in high school, one girl picked up the seed pod of a cottonwood tree (they sorta like like fuzzy white caterpillars) & chased after another girl who was known to be scared of creepy-crawlies. The scarer made they typical growling YAAAAHHHHH sound that little boys make when trying to be fierce, & the victim screamed & ran. The rest of us laughed until our sides ached!

Actually, the typical creepy-crawly wants what every living thing wants...to be left pretty much alone & to live its life in peace in whatever way is natural to that life-form. There are some, however, like fire ants & africanized honeybees that have a low level of tolerance for disturbance, which is why they seem to be so aggressive.

I love bees and all bugs. Invertebrates might be my longest-lasting special interest.

I have a nestbox for solitary bees in the garden. The species that use it are very mild in nature and there's virtually no chance of them stinging. The box has a lot of small cardboard tubes inside a plastic cylinder, and female bees use them like they would holes in trees (stock the tube with pollen for a larval food source, lay their egg, then seal the end of the tube with mud).

I'm not afraid of stinging insects so much as certain harmless ones . There's this type of black beetle that shows up where I live annually. I remember one flew right toward my head while I was sitting on my bed, and I rolled off like my pajamas were on fire to avoid it. Little bugger gave me the creeps. I also have this paranoia that a bug will crawl into my ear while I sleep and lay its eggs in my ear canal, so I have a habit of making sure my ears are covered by my hair before I go to bed. Like that would keep a bug out anyway .