“Buzzing Bees and Baby Birds,” Friend, Nov. 2008, 18–20
Buzzing Bees and Baby Birds
Thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart (D&C 19:28).
Brian felt very proud. He had built a birdhouse with a feeder tray that was just right for sparrows. Brian poured birdseed on the tray before he hung the birdhouse up in a tree where he could see it from the kitchen window. Then he waited.
About a week later a mother and father bird moved into the house. They carried small twigs and pieces of grass and string into the house to build a nest. Then the mother bird laid some eggs. Brian watched them every day. He always checked to make sure there was birdseed in the feeder.
One day Brian heard chirping. The baby birds had hatched! All day long the mother and father birds flew out of the house, then came back with a worm or a bug. They landed on the perch in front of the door and poked their heads in. When they pulled their heads out, their beaks were empty, and they flew away again.
A few days after the baby birds hatched, Brian saw some bees near the birdhouse. After the mother and father birds left to find food, the bees flew into the birdhouse. The bees buzzed and buzzed, and the baby birds chirped like they were scared. The mother and father birds came back, but they could only sit on a tree branch and watch.
Brian was scared. The bees buzzed like they were getting angry, and the babies were chirping frantically. He didn’t know what to do. “Those bees are going to sting the babies and kill them!” he cried.
He ran into the house to tell his mom. After she saw the bees, she called a teacher at the university. Brian sat in the kitchen, listening to his mom on the phone and watching the birdhouse out the window.
“Are you sure?” Brian’s mother said into the phone. “Well, all right, then. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and said, “He said there’s nothing we can do.”
Brian started to cry. He reached up and hugged his mom. Then he said a prayer in his heart. He asked Heavenly Father to help his mom save those little birds.
In about a minute, Brian’s mom ran over to the fridge. She quickly pulled a great big white onion out of a drawer and chopped it in half. Juices started oozing out of the onion and tears started rolling out of her eyes.
“Here,” she said, handing half to Brian. “Go put this on the bird feeder. Maybe it will scare the bees away.”
Brian took the onion and ran out the door. His eyes had started to water and his nose had started to run by the time he got the onion on the feeder. The bees suddenly swarmed out of the birdhouse and were gone. Brian was relieved, but the mother and father birds still wouldn’t come feed their babies. They stayed on their branch, staring at Brian. One had a worm in its beak; the other had a bug. Brian took the onion off the feeder and threw it away. Then the birds came back to the nest and fed the babies.
Brian smiled and silently thanked Heavenly Father for answering his prayer.
Illustrations by Matt Smith