Category: Manliness

Bee stings – numbers 2 to 15

Even walking through long grass brings me out in a skin rash … so perhaps I should have known better.

I had become blasé.  When we next went to check on Darren’s hives, I tucked my jeans into my socks and put the top half of the bee jacket on.

I already knew from experience that my jeans were not bee proof and I was rather nervous as Darren’s bees tried penetrating my button fly, only half of which were done up.  I have noticed bees make a high pitch whine when they are stuck or in the process of stinging you.  I hoped the whining sound coming from my fly was just a stuck bee.

And then it happened.  I got stung where there was only a thin layer of sock.  No not there, the sock on my foot.

The other bees identified my weak spot and in text book fashion my ankle was attacked by several bees, then my other ankle, then the top of my upper thighs!!

I made my excuses to Darren and headed to the other end of his garden.

I counted about 7 stings in one ankle, 4 in the other and 3 in my thigh.  I pulled about 30 bee stings out of my clothes.  What had Darren just said, it takes 200 bee stings to kill you … or was it 20?

A bee stingbee sting My swollen foot the next daybee sting reaction

I woke up the next morning at 6am with my ankles itching like crazy, my ankle swollen so that it looked like an elephants, bruising and an over welcoming feeling of tiredness.  Later that day, I felt slightly feverish and it was all I could do to hive a swarm of bees that a new bee friend had caught the previous day.  Honeymoon arrangements will have to wait!

My pregnant wife, who has a natural tendency to negate my feelings at the best of times, told me to man-up.  She will be horrified by the following analogy: Like a hippy woman approaching labour and not wanting to use any drugs or an epidural, I initially resisted anti-histamine pills or cream.  But 24 hours later I was smoothing in cream like it was suntan lotion.

Three days later, I was still exhausted, swollen, itchy and bruised.

I have been reading Beekeeping by Ron Brown over recent weeks.  He has a whole section on the make-up of bee venom (pages 131-134) which I have learnt is made up of: several toxic substances, several agents that help the venom spread around the body, protein irritants, steroids and an alarm pheromone.  Crikey!

Ron explains there are two types of people, those who produce more immunoglobulin G (IgG) and those who produce more immunoglobulin E (IgE).  Asthma and hayfever sufferers tend to produce more IgE (that’s me!) and this group of people suffer progressively worse from stings.  Those people who produce more IgG build up their resistance to stings.

He says that no beekeeper needs to give up because of an allergy because it is possible to have immunotherapy which results in becoming someone who produces more IgG.  I will have to look into this!

I also need to reduce the amount of stings I get in the first place so the plan is to: buy a full bee suit and wear wellington boots.  Get kitted-up and be prepared:

Buy beekeeper suits from £37Beekeeper suit

Read More

If you have enjoyed this post, please use the “like” buttons below.  And if you want to keep updated on my latest beekeeping episodes then please follow this blog.

Hive envy – according to Freud

I braced myself and decided it was time to check out Darren’s hives. I’d showed him mine so, you know, it only seemed fair.

Like most of my friends, Darren is more manly than myself.  He likes making fire, snowboarding at speed and wears chunky, S&M style wrist jewellery.  He likes BIG hives and aggressive bees.  He likes them aggressive as he believes they make more honey.

His garden extends into an allotment.  He describes himself as a low intervention beekeeper and I knew what he meant as we hacked our way through undergrowth to reach his hives.  It was actually quite magical when we got there, not least because his hives towered into the lower braches of the trees … one of the hives was on a triple brood box and full of bees!

Every frame was bursting with bees and filled with eggs, brood, honey and pollen in near perfect form.  As we got to the 33rd and final frame in the brood we found the Queen that he had marked last year.  He had found her last year, picked her up by her legs and marked her with Tipex.  I can’t even pick up a daddy-long-legs by the legs.

The visit re-established my bee-keeping inferiority complex, but it was a useful session.  I now know what eggs look like, how to see them and what a Queen looks like.  She’s a lot longer than the other bees.

Some beautiful wild honeycomb in one of Darren’s hives:

wild honeycomb

A bumbleebee on the wild honeycomb:

bumblebee on wild honeycomb

 

A busy brood box (one of the triple brood box colony):

busy beehive

If you like this post you might want to follow this blog and/or read more manliness posts.

The Honey Jubilee – but where’s my Queen?

The Queen is everywhere. On a boat in the rain; standing beside a hula-hooping Grace Jones; her face is even on Tesco’s cupcakes. But while there’s no escaping our long standing monarch, my Queen is nowhere to be seen.

It’s been one month since my hive swarmed and two weeks since the last inspection.  Some expert advice might be needed so I pick up my beekeeping friend, Darren, to provide an extra pair of eyes.

He’s the Harry to my William. While I’m more cautious, he’s all gung ho, a bit of a rogue and likely to dress-up inappropriately at a fancy dress party. He’s a manly beekeeper and someone I need to learn from.

The good news: We cannot see any varroa and there is plenty of capped honey in the super, see photo, makes my mouth water.

Super with honey

The bad news: We cannot see any brood, eggs or Queen.  And if the Diamond Jubilee has taught us anything – it’s that we need a Queen (if only to give a disapproving look to Elton John).

All 6 Queen cells had hatched out and it looks like each one had taken a cast (= after swarm) with it.  I had hoped the first Queen to hatch out would kill her sisters (after all there’s a bit history of this with those royal folk) but this obviously hadn’t happened and now I only have about 5,000 bees left.

Suddenly I wish Darren wasn’t here to size up my hive. I also wish I had killed the Queen cells as advised and maybe I would have had more of a hive to size up.

Maybe sensing my slight-despair-with-a-hint-of-embarrassment Darren did offer some solace. “Don’t worry mate – the weather’s been pants so maybe the Queen’s just gone out on her mating flight. And worse case you can just buy a new queen for £25”.

When it comes to bees … royalty is cheap!

Then we went to inspect Darren’s hives and I got Hive Envy.

Breaking an unwritten family rule

Beekeeping can be quite stressful at times and as a result I broke an unwritten family rule and swore in front of Dad.  In fact, I broke a whole load of rules and swore at Dad, who was “only trying to help”.

I have read the books about 10 times already.  In theory I know what to do.  In practice, when it comes to it, I get into an immediate panic and forget the basics like making my beesuit bee-tight.  And that’s just the start …

As if I wasn’t stressed enough, Dad kept annoying me by mentioning my back was naked and exposed.  It wasn’t long before I felt something crawling on the inside of my beesuit.  Up my neck, past my ear and onto my forehead.  Now, I was really annoyed at Dad.

But, crikey!  I was getting married the next day.  A bloated face was not an option.  Whilst I moved away from the disassembled hive to sort the problem, Dad ordered me to man-up and get back because the bees were getting angry and a bit chilly.  I can’t remember much at this stage because I was in a near blind panic, but I don’t think I swore at this point.  As a beekeeping side note: You don’t want Chilly Bees as they die.  You don’t want Angry Bees because they are a lot less fun than Angry Birds.  And you don’t want your Old Man telling you what to do because, because, because … well, we all know why!

I thought of my wife.  I thought of the photos.  I thought of the pain of a sting.  The 7 year-old in me manned-up, said “No” to Dad and went to find a tree and lose the other guard bees hassling me.

The 39 year old “might” have used an expletive, rather than the word “No”, but I am trying to keep this blog family-friendly.  I have never sworn in-front of my parents in all my years but since getting bees I have done it a few times.  These first Spring days of looking after bees are not quite how I imagined them on my Sunday mornings with a coffee in bed listening to Steve Wright’s Love Songs.

I am sure you will be relieved to know that I got the bee out of the bonnet without too much of a problem and I headed back to abuse my Dad before realising I needed a second pair of hands and that I had better behave.

Beekeepers - Dad & I

If you are enjoying these posts then please subscribe.

Bees on the outside of the hive – is this normal?

I confess, I am a very nervous beekeeper.

My wife is in awe at my supposed bravery in taking on such a ‘scary’ hobby – but the reality is, I still don’t feel comfortable beekeeping unless I have a professional by my side, or at least, my Dad.

He stands there calmly saying “focus on what you are doing”, I go into a panic-like zone and forget the basics like making my beesuit bee-tight.

Last week, I plucked up the courage to open the hive for a second time.  I had to.  It was the start of May – the swarmy season – and apparently I have “swarmy” bees.  The books said I needed to:

  1. Check if they were making a Queen cell, because if they were they would soon swarm and cause chaos
  2. Look for a Queen and mark her, so that I could undertake an artificial swarm to prevent a real swarm and chaos
  3. Make sure there was honey, pollen and brood in the frames, confirming that everything was OK
  4. Give them a sprinkle of icing sugar, to help reduce varroa

Only four little “to do’s” but one massive, noisy hive with 30,000 bees in it!

Crikey, it was busy (see photos below).

Step 1 – Looking for a Queen

No chance!  30,000 bees (many strangely on the outside of the hive after I had been examining the frames) versus one panicky, novice beekeeper with bees crawling inside his beesuit.

Yes – admittedly on my side I also have a calmer novice beekeeper (i.e. Dad) but unfortunately he’s an ally with macular degeneration who hadn’t had his Lucentis injection recently and now has a view of the world with an aspect ratio of 124:1.  To my Dad, all the bees looked like long, stripy worms.

Step 2 – Looking for a Queen Cell

Dad thought he saw a queen cell – but what did he know?  (Quite a lot apparently, see my next post).  In my panic-driven rush, I told him it was a drone cell.

Steps 3 & 4 – Checking the frames & using icing sugar

The frames seemed to have enough pollen, nectar (not capped) and brood. And I finished off the session by throwing icing sugar about, some of which went in the hive.

Phew.  Another encounter with bees leaves me stingless. Success in some form at least …

Help! Am I doing this right?

Beekeepers – how did I end up with so many bees on the outside of the hive?

Beehive covered in bees  Close up of bees outside hive

Postscript: You might want to read some of my swarmy bee posts!

Manliness – Learning to use a hammer at the age of 39

Renting flats and house shares for 20 years has meant that I have not needed to do any DIY or look after a garden EVER in my life.  Despite having an engineering degree, the only hand tools I have used have been a knife, fork and spoon.  Ever the modern-man, I have sensitive skin, use Marigolds and Head-To-Toe baby wash.  As a consequence my hands have a softness that Fairy Liquid models gush about and which my more manly friends are shocked by.  I feel this might change as I type this with hands bearing blisters and holes where I pulled splinters out.

Hammering has got to be simple, right?  It’s like one of the first things that our hominid ancestors did before they discovered fire.  I banged at the first nail with the enthusiasm and dexterity of an 8 year old child wielding a Bob-The-Builder tool-kit.  It went in at an angle and ending up poking out dangerously from the brood box.

My 70-year-old Dad, then showed me how to hammer nails in straight.  I always saw myself as a late developer, but not this late!  Should I be embarrassed writing this?  Not sure.

I looked at the flat hive pack with only slightly less trepidation than I look at the beehive.  So many parts.  So much that could go wrong.

Dad was keen for us to use his Black & Decker Workmate and he patiently showed me how it worked.  I’m glad he’s got the kit.

black and decker workmate beehive construction

Two hours after we started we had a hive stand.  Only a brood box, frames, supers and roof to go.  I don’t have time for this!  This is where the ready-assembled beehaus would have come into its own.

I thought beekeeping was going to help me regain my sanity but these last few days it has been making me feel anxious.  I am on a schedule.  I only have evenings and weekends.  I’m getting married in a week.  I have a load of to-do’s and a speech to write.  But the bees are full of varroa and on the edge of swarming.  If I don’t build this second hive now I won’t be ready to artificially swarm the bees.  I need to read up about varroa and how to get rid of it.  And this blog needs feeding, even though I only have 3 Facebook Friends.

Hopefully, the slow-paced, regaining my sanity moments will come later, right?

Other manly stuff I did this week (with Dad metaphorically holding my hand):

  • Went to a building product suppliers and talked with men – they treated me gently
  • Bought 2 flagstones to put under the hives
  • Got my first splinters in 20 years and enjoyed the pain
  • Built most of the rest of the hive (20 man hours so far)

PS. I am still worried about opening up the hive.

The next time I had to man-up was when I broke an unwritten family rule.

I Am Not A Beeman

Unlike me, Jonathan is a real beeman. He knows stuff.  He knows useful stuff about the weather, bees and plants, whilst I have a couple of theoretical GCSEs in Geography and Biology. He’s got dreadlocks.  I’ve got a short back and sides with designer stubble.  Not waxing is my token gesture to manhood.  He picks bees up by their wings.  I stare at bees and wonder what to do.  He gets the smoker started in less than a minute.  I just stand and stare uselessly wondering “how did he do that”?  He uses his bare hands to wipe the floor board clean which has quite a few varroa mites on.  I cringe and think “I need to man-up”.  He casually knocks bees off the frames.  I knock 1 or 2 off when I try the same technique.  He is a beeman.  I am not a man.  I am not even a fish (to quote an Apprentice episode).  When will I be able to strut proudly in my beesuit?  I had better read “Status Anxiety” again.

My new-to-me hive:

 My Beehive  National Beehive

Major U-turn!  I have a confession to make!  You may have noticed from the photo that it does not look like an urban setting.  The plan to be an urban beekeeper has changed as an opportunity came up to buy a National hive full of bees in a countryside allotment.  Beekeeping is not cheap and this seemed a good way to start.

Despite my ineptitude and lack of beemanliness, Jonathan was fine about selling me his bees.  I am not sure how the bees feel about it.  I will introduce myself properly when my beesuit arrives, but I am guessing my arrival might not be welcome.  If I was them, I would rather be looked-after by Jonathan.

As I write this post from my flat in Bristol, it feels strange to think that there is a hive out there that I am responsible for.  It feels a bit overwhelming.  Where’s Jonathan?  Can I send him another text?  Did the cost of the beehive include dealing with an anxious, novice beekeeper?

 “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” United States Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld”, 2002

My fears – the known knows:

  1. The Queen is unmarked. How am I going to find her amongst 30,000 other bees, when I artificially swarm them in a few weeks time?
  2. Will I be able to handle the bees, or will they terrify me?
  3. Will I be able to reduce the varroa and remove the ants?
  4. Will I be able to build a hive from a flat pack (I am so unpractical)?
  5. Jonathan says the bees are “swarmy” – a technical term for the fact that I might not have any bees next week and risk annoying lots of neighbours

My ignorance – the “unknown unknowns”:

Despite my Geography and Biology GCSEs, I know little of practical use about the environment and animals.  Whilst Rumsfeld might have been coy about what he knew, I can honestly say that when I look at the hive, it is the great unknown to me!

To manage my fears I have a plan: 

  1. To deal with the varroa: order some Hive Clean (natural treatment for the varroa)
  2. To deal with the ants: get some cinnamon and vaseline (more in a future post)
  3. To deal with the “swarminess” – buy another hive and when the bees start creating Queen cells, get Jonathan over, find and mark the Queen and do an artificial swarm into the new hive.  (I will then have 2 hives! Am I multiplying my problems?  The expression “out of the frying pan and into the fire” comes to mind.)

I think it’s gonna be alright.

Post script: As a beekeeper, this was the first time I realised I had some manliness issues to deal with.  The next time they cropped up was when buillding a flat pack beehive, Manliness – Learning to use a hammer at the age of 39.