Tuesday, May 18, 2010

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.

5 comments:

İlhami Uyar said...

you must keep obbey beekeeping rules,rules very important,get well soon.Greeting from Turkey

Peter said...

It's amazing how fast the guards can come at you once you cross them! I had my first sting recently when I was crouched down looking at the bees feeding - leaned a little too close and -bam- guard flew straight for my eyebrow.

Anonymous said...

Hola, Barbara! Been awhile so I wanted to drop by and say hello! Hope all is well in Canada and you're girls are behaving (as best they can)! -Mark

Michelle said...

Ouch! I hope recovery from the stings was much less painful than the actual stings themselves.

Sam Smith said...

Lol I find the sting itself is nothing but if you swell you also itch and you know what itching is like! They always seem to go for the face, supposed to be the carbon dioxide, try blowing on a frame you will see what I mean :)