Who's Afraid of a Little Bee Sting?

I am a new beekeeper, which also means I am a pretty poor beekeeper - in both senses of the word. I don't know what I am doing and you have to part with quite a few dollars to get set up for your first hives. I am not completely clueless though. Unlike when I got my new cell phone, I didn't throw the instructions in a drawer and spend the next two days screaming about how dumb my bees were. I actually studied for over a year before taking the plunge. I read up on beekeeping on the Internet, got some beekeeping books from the library, and watched lots of YouTube videos on everything from setting up hives to feeding (they eat sugar water if there isn't any nectar around) and how to avoid getting stung.

This last point is pretty interesting to me because I am slightly allergic to bee stings. Not "help I can't breathe" allergic, but more like "what happened to your hand...it looks like a sausage?!?" allergic. The basic techniques for not getting stung are:

1. Don't raise bees.
2. Con someone else into raising your bees.
3. Just let them keep their honey..I will get mine at the store.
4. Wear protective equipment.

Since 1-3 didn't work out for me, I reluctantly went with option 4. Well, that is to say I eventually and enthusiastically went to option 4. 

Uncle Will is a great guy, and when he found out I was going to get some honey bees, he was very interested. He asked lots of questions about them that I had no clue what the answer was ("oh, they call her a queen because she has little spikes on her head that look like a crown", "They don't actually like honey, they just use it as a bribe to keep the bears happy"). He even watched an extremely poorly made beekeeping video with me that was copyrighted in 1990 and had all of the flair of a dirty dishrag.

One of Uncle's favorite things to do while watching these videos is point out how they always harped on wearing protective equipment, but then went traipsing around the beeyard in shorts and flip-flops. I concluded from the number of experienced beekeepers I saw tending bees in less clothing than they would go to a social function in that all of that nonsense about getting stung was for the birds, not the bees. Leave it.

The first week I got the bees was exciting. I went to a bee farm in a nearby town and purchased two "nucleus packs" which are basically mini hives with several frames of comb, lots of eggs in the frames waiting to hatch, and some honey to get them through until they can find enough nectar. Heck, it was as easy as getting a new cell phone. Just open the box and start using it.

"There are HOW MANY bees in this box?" I asked the man selling me the bees? "About twenty thousand, give or take." he said. "In this little box? Are you sure?"

"Yup. Counted them myself this morning," he said with a smile, "but they may have invited some friends over." I hate smart alack bee keepers. Especially ones that I am handing over large bills to for a box that is emitting a very disturbing buzzing sound and is being held closed with a piece of duct tape that keeps popping loose.

"Wait till morning to put 'em in the hive," he said, "they crawl at night looking for their nest and warmth and the closest thing to them that is climbable and warm is your legs. I told one lady that and she insisted that she had to do it that night. I hope she had on long pants and not a skirt." he said, grinning.

"Ha," I told my uncle who had ridden with me to get the bees and opted to stay in the truck with the windows rolled up, "a fat lot that guy knows about bees. I mean, did you see him? He was wearing a bee veil and a jacket the whole time he was talking to me. He must be an amateur, for sure."

"How many bees did he say were in that box?" he asked, eying them in the bed of the truck.

The next day I put on my veil and a long sleeve shirt and jeans. I felt like an idiot dressing like that in the warm spring weather, looking like an amateur. Those guys in the video didn't wear all of this garb, but my wife had seen movies where people were stung to death by angry bees, so she insisted. "Leave the dog here!" she yelled as I was driving out of the yard to the beehives. "Why?" I asked. "Because I saw a movie where the dog started barking at the bees and it made them mad and they killed the man and the dog." "That's idiotic!" I shouted back. The dog stayed.

I actually got the bees in their new home, got them feeding on some sugar water, and all was well for a while. My uncle came with me the third day I had them and watched me feed them. I had fed them twice already wearing jeans and a tee shirt with no problems. They would land on me, but not sting me. That day I went late in the evening, and they apparently aren't as forgiving late in the day. I guess working like bees all day long will do that. For whatever reason, this time when I took the feeder from the hive, a handful of bees came with it to reclaim it. I ignored them. They landed on my hair and started crawling around and, I imagined, looking for a soft place to do their evil deed with their little sharp stinger. I ignored them. One dug through my hair and was scratching at my scalp and buzzing loudly. I couldn't ignore him. I did what I knew was the wrong thing and tried to brush him out of my hair. He stung my head, right on the top. Uncle chuckled.

The next couple of days, I wore a baseball cap to disguise the fact that my head had taken on a distinct cone shape. I noticed that when I wore the cap, they would land on it, but they couldn't get in my hair, so I just started wearing it when I fed them. No way I am putting on that stupid veil. Veils are for brides, not men and since I don't have any intention of being a bride, I don't have any intention of wearing a veil. Take that you money-grubbing bee supply store that preys on people's fears of getting stung just to sell them sissy veils that they don't even need.

It was going great. I was feeding them with no trouble with just jeans, a tee shirt, and a baseball cap and didn't have any problems. Then Uncle Will went with me to feed one afternoon. Once again, when I took the feeder from the hive, they followed me. I wasn't worried, I had my trusty baseball cap on. Only this time they didn't land on the cap, they landed on my neck. My neck seemed to be the most interesting place they had ever been. They strolled around, merrily buzzing as I tried to ignore them. One of the noticed an odd looking outcropping and decided to get a closer look. He crawled onto my ear and played me a nice little kazoo number called "Living on a Prayer."

After a while, the ear got boring and he ran out of tunes to buzz so he decided to do a little spelunking under my hat band. I knew he couldn't get under it, but he didn't. In fact, he was sure he could and once he recruited a few of his buddies, I was starting to think he was onto something. I ignored him as long as I could, merrily pouring sugar water all over my feet, the ground, and some nearby bushes as I tried to keep my hands steady, but eventually he wore me down. I am pretty sure he was almost completely under my hat band when I decided to snatch off my hat and shoo him away. It was a brilliant, inspired plan for getting my face stung, right under my temple.

"Well, he got me!" I said, casually to Uncle. He chuckled.

The next day I woke up and realized that there was a stranger in my bathroom. Half-awake, I had just done what most folks do when they first wake up in the morning and was washing my hands when, out of the corner of my eye in the dim bathroom, I caught an unfamiliar face looking at me. I jumped back, grabbing for the plunger, not the best self defense weapon, but much better than the toilet brush. I spun back around and flipped on the light, ready to attack the intruder. What I saw was a pudgy version of me. It was an obese twin brother that I had never met. My life was turned upside down...what happened? Why had we never met? Why was he so fat? Was it the stress of losing his family? I needed answers! What was the meaning of this sudden intrusion into my life by a fat, bloated even, version of me? What did he want?

Oh. That was the mirror. False alarm. But WOAH! What is wrong with my face! I then remembered dreaming that I was a balloon and someone was filling my head with hot air. It kept stretching and burning and itching and....oh. It was the bee sting. My entire face had swollen to twice its normal pudginess, which is pretty darned pudgy. I laughed. I couldn't help it, I looked so fat!

The next day, I ordered coveralls to go with the gloves and veil that I had tossed into the box they came in the day after getting bees. Now when I go to the bee yard, I suit up like I am going to a nuclear fallout site. I don't think it was the bee sting that convinced me though, I think it was the stinging remark that Uncle Will made when he saw my bloated face that night. "Well, I guess I really can call you a fat head now."

So, you may ask, do you always wear your veil now?

"I do."