🐝 Getting Stung


Have you ever been handed a frame of bees to hold while your spouse tries to catch a new queen for marking on it? Me neither at least until today. Being a model of coordination & steadiness I grabbed a hold of the side rails and most bees made way, one did not. Typical fury of a scorned woman, that one bee gave up her life to show me her displeasure in being manhandled. Atypical of me I had to take this assault on my left pointer finger in a stoic fashion so as not to be the target of the wraith of the real woman of the apiary, diligently trying to put a white dot on the thorax of a 2021 matriarch. 

Being a beekeeper the number one question you get asked always involves stings. How many? How often? Where? and my personal favorite "Have you ever?". Non-beekeepers really don't appreciate the true amount of stings we get. I will say the more experience you gain the sting count does go down, but it's still a fairly regular occurrence. On a beautiful sunny afternoon on a scheduled and thought-out inspection with plenty of smoke, and gear, the threat of stings is pretty low. It's always when you're in a hurry, adding a super before a trip when it won't stop raining, topping off feed, or my personal favorite... forgetting to replace the swifter-sheet before closing up the hive and moving on. I always find them blowing around the yard after we have cleaned up and de-garbed from an inspection. My actions of popping the top real quick and throwing that rag back on top have more than once been countered with a venom sac pulsating in my flesh.

Getting stung hurts. There is no getting used to it or a tolerance level that you build up. People that work bees without at least a veil are in my mind not that bright. You may be able to man up and take it without flinching, just like you may be able to eat wings dossed in reaper sauce without a whimper, but why do it? Wings are so much more enjoyable when your tongue isn't blistering just like beekeeping is more fun without the stings. So for us, it's Michelin Man-style coats, gloves, and long pants when it's time to get up close and personal.  The minimum PPE is most times a veil when doing feeding or mowing the lawn.

Bringing on the next subject of where. There isn't really a better place to get stung. Speaking as a man with experience, yes the nethers have been assaulted when doing some early morning feeding with basketball shorts on. The only saving grace was it was the beans and not the frank, although some localized swelling would have been more appreciated. For me, the worst places to get stung are (in order of suckiness):

  1. Face - This always seems to swell the most and is a favorite target of those sweet little gals. The next day is always full of explanations as to why your eye is shut or why your lips look like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. And yes you still get asked the question: "Do you ever get stung?".
  2. Feet - Stepping on a bee in bare feet always brings a special kind of pain and language spewing from even the mildest of mannered reporters.
  3. Beans or Frank - This goes without saying, but still number 3 on the list.
I've often thought of making some type of sting counter to actually keep track, but as noted earlier, it seems like the number of stings decreases with experience and I will say you end up doing a better job of moving on and removing stingers quickly so not to get a full load of melittin, Bee Venom and the Chemistry of OUCH! | Bee Culture. So I think putting efforts into avoidance is better than tracking.

The latest inspection notes: 

... and some photos of the newly mated queen:






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