Monday, June 28, 2004
Beekeeping Jones' Diary
(honey collected: 0lbs, siblings asphyxiated: 2, stings sustained: 3, swearwords uttered: many)
My brother is a man of comparative leisure. He's just returned from an arduous trip guiding 18 year old cheerleaders around Southern Spain, and he's off again tomorrow to Sweden to go ice fishing inside the Arctic Circle. This left a window of only one day for the all important weekly bee hive inspection. It was far from ideal conditions, being overcast and windy, but that doesn't excuse the unmitigated disaster that followed.
Just as I removed the hive top, the smoker failed. My brother gamely puffed warm air in my direction as a cloud of bees descended on me. Given their state of buzzing enragement, I felt lucky to get away with just three stings. Once you get the first sting you know you're in trouble, because the released alarm pheromone instantly warns the whole hive of the ongoing attack.
I had to briefly retire to change my gauntlets, and then returned brandishing the smoker with renewed vigor. Choking back the clouds of smoke we got half way through checking the frames without sustaining any more stings. Unfortunately we were then caught out by a sudden thunderstorm, and had to close down the hive in a hurry.
So for all our work, we failed to find the queen, didn't get any honey for extraction, and my arms look like I've got a florid case of the plague. Beekeeping seemed like a romantic peaceful past-time, until I actually got started on it. Now I know better; it's stressful, painful, and physically disfiguring.
(honey collected: 0lbs, siblings asphyxiated: 2, stings sustained: 3, swearwords uttered: many)
My brother is a man of comparative leisure. He's just returned from an arduous trip guiding 18 year old cheerleaders around Southern Spain, and he's off again tomorrow to Sweden to go ice fishing inside the Arctic Circle. This left a window of only one day for the all important weekly bee hive inspection. It was far from ideal conditions, being overcast and windy, but that doesn't excuse the unmitigated disaster that followed.
Just as I removed the hive top, the smoker failed. My brother gamely puffed warm air in my direction as a cloud of bees descended on me. Given their state of buzzing enragement, I felt lucky to get away with just three stings. Once you get the first sting you know you're in trouble, because the released alarm pheromone instantly warns the whole hive of the ongoing attack.
I had to briefly retire to change my gauntlets, and then returned brandishing the smoker with renewed vigor. Choking back the clouds of smoke we got half way through checking the frames without sustaining any more stings. Unfortunately we were then caught out by a sudden thunderstorm, and had to close down the hive in a hurry.
So for all our work, we failed to find the queen, didn't get any honey for extraction, and my arms look like I've got a florid case of the plague. Beekeeping seemed like a romantic peaceful past-time, until I actually got started on it. Now I know better; it's stressful, painful, and physically disfiguring.
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