I've started the season off being a busy bee myself, spending a couple of hours in the beeyard both yesterday and today.
Yesterday's session was a lighthearted affair, a nice reunion with my fellow beekeepers and the bees, with enough of us there that I was able to shadow someone with more experience and still be useful.
Today's session only had two of us besides our staff beekeeper, and went a little less smoothly. I felt like a complete newbie. My allergies were terrible, a queen flew away (!) while under my watchful eye (luckily she was recovered shortly after), and a frame covered with bees slipped out of my hand, knocking a few dozen bees to the ground and infuriating them and their hivemates. One of them was upset enough that she made the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the hive and stung me through my shoe. I still had to deal with the hive, which turned out to be a very angry hive. I also dropped my hive tool on it, which probably did not soothe the bees. I later learned that one of the hives I'd worked on had an 'unfortunate amount' of excess honeycomb removed, which may have included some valuable queen cups. I fear that this was due to my enthusiasm in cleaning up the hive. And incredibly, to add insult to injury I actually managed to inflict myself with a second bee sting. An angry bee had gotten stuck in my pocket, and must have stung the tissues I'd had stuffed in there. At one point I went to blow my nose, and jabbed my face with the stinger embedded in the tissue.
On the positive side, it was a wonderful warm, sunny day, my companions are gentle, kind and patient, and, when all is said and done, the whole point of being a member of the co-op is to learn. I'm starting with learning how much I still need to learn! I'm a big fan of learning through immersion, and take some small comfort in knowing that by the end of the season I may actually feel like a competent beekeeper. Looking fowrard to next weekend, when I get to reacquaint myself with the Royal York bees!
