it's not the bee's fault

what a hazy, itchy and surreal time the past few days have been!

It's been a lovely early summer here; warm, sunny days, full of gentle breezes and general good cheer. I'd taken Wednesday off to put in some beekeeping time, and as hoped, it turned out to be a beautiful day. After a double shift in the beeyard, I had taken off my gloves and was wrapping up the the last of my notes when a bee decided she needed to make the ultimate sacrifice and stung me on my finger. I flicked the stinger out right away, briefly mourned for the bee, and carried on with my day.

Almost exactly 24 hours later I was sitting in the St. Michael's emergency room, getting a good dose of antibiotics through an IV. During those 24 hours I had observed, first-hand, the development of a vigorous bacterial infection. Fascinating! Also scary. It turns out that out of all of the bacteria that's crawling all over everything and everyone all the time, every once in a while one will be in exactly the right place at the right time,and unleash a very localized perfect shitstorm, featuring swelling! incessant itchiness! painful, violent throbbing and frightening pink steaks forming under the skin!

After a second round of IV antibiotics things are definitely looking better, but I'm still on Benadyl and  antibiotics for a while and this ridiculously puffy cartoon hand could be around for several days still.

stung by bees, still lots to learn

The new bee season has started, and I've decided that I need to get serious in my commitment to the bee co-op. There have been some big changes in the off-season, and it feels like a fresh beginning.

 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!

bee action!

did i mention i've gone and become a beekeeper? i joined the bee co-op and have enthusiastically been learning by doing. i spent a great saturday at the brickworks manning a booth and talking to people and pestering the more senior co-op members with questions. this is the observation hive that was on display.

larvae-beasts

the glistening white beasties in the holes are bee larvae; the other bees are hustling and bustling, feeding the larvae and building a little bridge out of themselves, so that comb-repair work could be done in those hard-to-reach places.