Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Learning Curve  (Read 1467 times)

Offline JD

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 47
  • Gender: Male
Learning Curve
« on: September 05, 2009, 06:22:27 pm »
I've been beekeeping for 3 years now. Its been allot of fun not to mention the rewards of the honey harvest and just watching and learning. My first 2 years I never got stung once. This year I've been stung on 2 separate conditions. The first time was when I weedeating in front of the hive. Done it hundreds of times. This time they were bearding all over the front of the hive. Them bees are fast. Got stung once on the neck and 4 times on my leg. Wished I had a video of it. Swatting, spinning in circles all the way to the safety of my garage. The stings didn't really hurt that bad and the swelling really wasn't that noticeable. The second time was after I had extracted my honey. I removed the honey from the supers and decided I would put them out the next day and let them clean them up. What A BIG MISTAKE! I was cleaning up at the same time. The distance between me and the supers was reasonable I thought. All I heard was a buzzing and wham. Nailed right on the ole ear. You want to talk about something funny. Imagine looking at yourself in the mirror and seeing one ear sticking out three times as far and twice as big as the other one. Did it hurt? Not really. Was my pride hurt? Yes. Glad I was on vacation. Didn't leave the house for 2 days. I live in a small town, kids getting out of school, and the neighbor decided to mow his grass. Them bee's were going crazy. All I could think of was someone getting hurt. Well  the cop's didn't take me or the girls away in handcuffs so I guess every thing is fine. A list of not what to do would be fine. Thanks  JD   

Offline Sparky

  • Field Bee
  • ***
  • Posts: 804
  • Gender: Male
Re: Learning Curve
« Reply #1 on: September 05, 2009, 09:46:58 pm »
LAUGHING OUT LOUD!!! Not at you but with you. I know all to well what you are going through. I can remember watching the many ways to introduce a new package of bees. Some by the self proclaimed professionals to the novice, till I saw the method shown by a beekeeper in California. His method looked so simple and it was, till I did the stupid three days later. The package was set in the hive with enough frames removed to put it in after the Queen cage was secured to a frame. The package cover was removed after emptying the syrup into a entrance style feeder and just close up the hive. Smooth as silk, that was and no stress on the bees. The day that I opened the hive to see if the queen was OK was dreary and not the day to get into a hive. I was impatient and had to get it done. I used no protection and opened the hive and queen was out and OK. I pulled the package out to add the missing frames and noticed a group of bees on the side of the package screen and instead of sitting it in front of the hive and finishing putting in the missing frames I just had to brush the into the box with the only tool I took with me. The bee brush. The girls did not like it at all and went into attack mode and with my full head of hair they stung me in the scalp and neck and ears. roughly about 10 of them. Do you know how tough it is to spin around then run with your finger combing bees out of your hair and shaking off bees that were all over my shirt and cussing at yourself for being so stupid for turning a simple thing into problem thing for doing it wrong. Lesson to never repeat.