The cider mill games

One of the joys of autumn in Michigan is visiting a cider mill. Basically, this is a place where you can buy festive fall food items loosely connected to apples and, more important, containing large quantities of sugar: apple cider, plain donuts and donuts dipped in sugar, caramel apples, sugar straight up, etc. The large quantities of sugar are then enjoyed on the grounds while lounging at picnic tables, or taken home to be enjoyed later or, as frequently happens with us, consumed while sitting in the car in the parking lot of the cider mill, with the heat blasting. This is, after all, October in Michigan, which is roughly equivalent to January in more moderate states.

But if you opt for eating your treats in the car or at home, you miss out on one of the other great features of most cider mills: bees. The bees are very friendly. Pretty much wherever you are, particularly if you have a glass of cider, the bees will want to be also. On any given day on a weekend during the fall, the ratio of bees to people at a cider mill is about 178 to 1. 

On our recent visit, we headed out to the yard with our cider and donuts. There, the time that should have been spent enjoying our treats was instead spent on intricate bee evasion maneuvers that would have done an army commander proud. There were only three other people outside, and they were not in possession of any food or drinks, so the bee-to-person-holding-sweet-beverages ratio rose to the level of Harry Potter fans to Harry Potter.

The bees seemed to instantly divine our maneuvers. Our trail resembled the ones sometimes shown in the "Family Circus" comic strip, wandering all over the neighborhood and up into trees, etc. We considered giving up one of our glasses of cider as a sacrifice to draw the bees' attention while we escaped with the other glass and the donuts, but we figured the bees already knew this trick.

Some thoughtful person had planted weapons around the yard: flyswatters. They worked very well, if you wanted to rile the bees up more than they already were. Our bag of donuts would have served this purpose just as well.

We cheered to ourselves when a bus full of teenagers pulled into the lot, figuring this would bring the bee ratio down significantly. We even went so far as to celebrate our expected liberation by sneaking a sip of our cider. Evidently the teachers had experience with the bees, though, and they piled everyone back onto the bus to enjoy their snacks.

We finally decided to pile back into our car too, so the Hero created a diversion while I fled to safety. I had to circle the car several times to make sure no bees were following me. The Hero jumped in after me, having narrowly escaped a bee slipping into his cider.

We had a little toast: to next year's trip to the cider mill. And next year's bees.