Rules are Meant to be Broken

There's a saying that "rules are made to be broken" and often I’m inclined to believe it. But as I sit here now sporting my two fresh bee stings I am re-contemplating my position on whether or not they should be.

It occurs to me that rules might be made for a reason. I'm always one that likes to test a theory although I admit in this instance I didn't do it on purpose. More likely I forgot to think about what I was doing.

We were transporting two new freshly painted hives to the bee yard.
I'd come straight from work and was wearing casual clothing, a black T-shirt and jeans. Since I wasn't technically working on the hives at that moment and instead working beside them to set up the new hives, I did put on a handkerchief over my hair and a hat but I didn’t put on my veil or my light coloured shirt.

It was only a couple seconds after I shifted a couple cement blocks, sending a thunk and vibration through the ground that the first guard came at me. She flew out of the hive with a purposeful arch aiming right for me. No warning bump, instead a sting right on the neck.

First rule broken: Wear light colours because bees don't like dark colours. Result: It's true.

Next I had opened one of the hives to remove the rim spacer. It had been on there for a few weeks during treatment and the bees had made great use of that space, building a lot of comb. So I shook them off into the hive. My second mistake was to not pull my socks up over my pant legs. Sure enough a bee crawled up inside my pant leg.

Second rule broken: When working in the bee yard, pull your socks up over your pant legs to prevent bees crawling up inside your pants. Result: Read on....

I kept working but it wasn’t too many minutes after that when I yelped. You can guess where she stung me.

Funny thing though is that after those stings I felt great and slept like a baby. I’m not sure if that was from the hard work and fresh air or a little apitherapy at work. Maybe both.