Breaking Bee Records

It would be awesome if our bees were breaking honey production records, or quality records, or other such positive and exciting things that the title may have led you to believe...but alas, the bee record that i broke last week was the "most stings recorded in a single attack".

That's the kind of record I'm not so anxious to break again!

It was my first time out to actually actively help with the bees.  Both Gab and i were fully suited and booted -- full body suit, mask tucked in, gloves, boots, the works.  We were aiming to catch a really big swarm that had got away that morning and was settling into a high branch on a cherry tree.

We didn't want to cut the branch off, because it is a major part of the cherry's production.  But it was too high to just grab and pull down.  So we improvised...Gab had me hold the hive on top of my head, and he climbed up the tree to shake the swarm off the branch and into the hive...yes, the one on top of my head.  Gosh, that really does sound stupid, now that its all written out in black and white, doesn't it?  But at the time it made perfect sense.  Swarms are docile when they are swarming, and Gab had done may similar such manoeuvers with other swarms.

Only thing is, he wasn't perfectly aligned when he shook the branch...and the swarm MISSED the hive and went THUMP all the way to the ground right beside me.  And swarming or not, no bee is docile when its been thumped to the ground like that!  Let alone about 10.000 bees thumped to the ground all at once.

I got 23 stings that made it through all the protections, and the suit was full of stingers that didn't make it through, more than a hundred stingers in the suit all over.  Actually, i was most surprised at the fact that the stings don't really hurt that much -- maybe because they were through the suit, and therefore not as much venom got through.  The worst was the itch two days later!

Anyway, its all good -- bee venom is very good for you...in small doses!!  And Gab caught the swarm the next day all by himself, using a ladder to hold the hive instead of his wife's head.  Much safer that way!

We're well into summer now, so lots is happening and there's no time to write about it, but in the next few days i'm planning to write a number of smaller posts trying to catch up on everything overall...thanks to Kaitlyn for the nagging, otherwise i'd just get carried away in the day to day and forget completely to blog it!