Bees Win in Hard Fought Contest

It was a mis- adventure that could have been ripped from the scripts for Jackass.

Have you ever heard some variation of the phrase "...knowing just enough to be dangerous?" In my "all of three months" of beekeeping - digging into hives, shuffling frames, blowing smoke - I had developed a serious case of "knowing" my bees. My girls! We had an understanding. Well, worse than any wife or girlfriend, these sisters put me in my place. I am still discovering stings that I didn't know I had. When you stumble into the proverbial hornet's nest, or in this case honeybees, and they rise up in a beautiful cloud of yellow and black, their patience and goodwill gone, their buzzing changed to the pitch of some World War II fighter plane, and they descend on you like the fury of hell itself, you are far too busy running to pay much attention to individual stings. The terror is in their numbers, their noise, and their relentlessness. Pain is way down the list. I ran across my lawn like a man on fire, arms flailing wildly (I did withhold the urge to scream like a child), It seemed to me that I plucked one bee after another from some part of my upper anatomy with each step. Others sailed around my head. If I actually outran any of them, I retained a fine cadre of bee track stars who not only kept pace but literally flew circles around me as I ran. Any neighbors watching must have regretted forgetting the popcorn. I'm sure I put on one hell of a show! In the end, at last count, only five bees made the ultimate sacrifice for their hive. A number so puny, that I'm almost embarrassed by what I've just written...except that THE TERROR WAS REAL!!! And as I say, I continue to find itchy red spots I didn't know I had, so...

By now, you are probably asking yourself "What in the world did he do?" "How did he get into such a scrape?" Or perhaps "What an idiot!"

Let me tell you the story and then you can all unite on that last phrase. Sing it out loud, in unison if you like. Here goes...

It all began with feeding my bees sugar syrup so that they could draw out lots of beautiful comb in my honey supers. A week ago, I placed pollen patties on the top frames of each honey super and poured a gallon of syrup in each top feeder. It took the bees a day or so to realize that there was vittles in them thar feeders, but upon finding it, they sucked it down like it was some kind of contest. Two days after putting it in, the feeders were drained. I added more. One day later the syrup was gone. Now remember, each gallon of syrup contains an entire 5lb bag of granulated sugar. So in a matter of days they had downed 20lbs of the stuff. Exasperated, I made four gallons, two for each hive, poured it in, and envisioned getting a second mortgage just to feed these little gluttons.

Prior to adding the two gallons this last time around, I checked their progress building out the frames. The Georgia girls, who had a good head start on the neighbors, had drawn out six of their frames and begun filling them with liquid. Good show girls! The Arlington babes were much farther behind, having just begun work on two or three. This is where we stood prior to adding the four gallons of new syrup. This was added on Friday, June 15.

Yesterday, I took a peek in the feeders to see how much they had consumed and was amazed to see no more than perhaps a half gallon left. This was in Arlington. I never made it to Georgia.

Upon seeing that their syrup was nearly gone, I was overcome with curiosity about the frames. So much so, in fact, that I thought I'd peek without benefit of smoke, gloves, veil, etc. I was wearing a tee shirt, shorts and a baseball cap. Oh, and lots of exposed skin. I lifted the hive top feeder up and the last thing I remember before running for my life was a mushroom cloud of bees forming above the hive, the roar of hundreds, maybe thousands of bees (God! I just don't know!) and the cloud collapsing around me. This all took place in perhaps a nanosecond. My next coherent memory is of my blessed bathroom and a single bee, who had followed me in, batting itself silly against the ceiling light. I was breathing hard...but I was alive.

I never was able to ascertain the progress on the frames and, frankly, I didn't care.

Until today. I'll show those little bugs. I won't be denied. I am the higher life form after all.

Sting count after yesterday's debacle...12