First Stings

This week I did a hive inspection.  For the past few weeks, I haven't been able to locate my gloves, so I get stung a lot. I wear latex gloves, though, and they help.  I can still feel the work I am doing, which helps my dexterity, and if I get stung. I can just lift the stinger off (without depressing the poison sac injector at the end of the stinger), and I get less poison.

Most of the time, I do my inspections solo, simply because I like being with the bees. They are fascinating creatures, and as I observe more, I feel like I get to understand them better. (I suspect that the hummmm drowning out my tinnitus also is a factor.)

What I don't love is having someone else get stung. Whenever I have help, I have to keep an eye out for how they are faring.  I love showing, and I love teaching, and it is the coolest thing ever to see someone get enthused. But when they get stung, I worry that the love affair I have with bees is going to be ruined for the person helping.

Last week, my wife Kathe got stung.

She had been doing really well.  She went from someone who had an unreasonable fear of bees (well, maybe not so unreasonable) to someone infected with second-person honeybee-itis.  My enthusiasm is infectious, and I am like a five-year-old, rattling off all of these unimaginable facts about honeybees.... 

("did you know that drone bees come from the unfertilized egg? and did you know that the bees do a waggle dance that communicates direction and distance?  and did you know.....")

Kathe, looking cute in beek garb.

...and Kathe had gone from being afraid to wary to accepting to tolerant of bees, even before we actually had a hive at our house.  As she had watched me, she had grown even less afraid, and became my photographer.  Hive inspection selfies are notoriously difficult, and fraught with peril.  I need to be focusing on the girls, rather than making pouty lips for the camera. 

And Kathe seemed pretty happy, taking pictures.  She dared - even without the bonnet -  to get closer and closer, getting the picture, and getting some really good ones, too.  Afterwards, looking at her pics, I was able to confirm some of my impressions of what was going on in the hive.

And then came last week.  

She was doing her move-in-get-the-shot-move-out dance, and was getting good shots.  And in the middle of one of the hive inspections, I dropped the frame I was holding.  Not a massive splat, just a small jolt to everyone on the frame.  

Dropping the frame is not the end of the world.  There is a danger that some of the girls get crushed, and an extreme outside chance that the queen might get hurt.  But mostly it just gets everyone excited.  You combat that with a little more smoke, and keep working. 

But the girls did not calm down much.  And when Kathe came in for her next picture, they charged her.

She stepped back calmly.  That had always worked before.  They matched her, stride for stride.  She backed away more, giving them all the space they needed. They matched her, stride for stride, bumping her head over and over.

And then she broke, and started running. (And maybe flailing, just a little bit).

I told her STOP, and she did, while covering her face with her hands (good instinctive move).  I walked over to her, and the bees started bumping me, instead.  I was in full suit, so I ignored their attentions.  

"I think I just got stung," she said.  "Maybe twice."

I looked over at her, and sure enough, there was one stinger hanging from her forehead.  I told her, "Go inside.  I'll meet you and get the stinger out. But don't touch it." The stinger sac, when depressed, pushes more poison into the skin.  And it hurts like billy-oh.

As I took my gear off, one of the girls that followed us decided to X herself on my ear.  

Once I had tweezer-removed the stinger from Kathe's forehead, I removed the stinger from my ear, and went back out to my now-becalmed hive.  Sans photographer.  Oddly enough, her approach worked wonders: the combination of stinger removal, alcohol application, and benadryl ingestion resulted in a very minor reaction.  Essentially, Kathe looked as though she had a mosquito bite on her forerhead, and nothing on the jaw where she had also been stung.

So much for the epi-pen I keep at the ready.

Kathe is not the only person to have been stung while I worked the bees.

Shannen, a newbie beek like me, presented a more serious issue.  A couple of years ago, she had an allergic reaction to a wasp sting (wasps are different), and landed in the hospital.  So when she started keeping bees this year, she was understandably concerned about how she would react to getting stung.  She was VERY careful, and was extremely conscientious of being completely covered up when working her girls.  

And two months in, had still not been stung. As she said to me, "I was pretty much at the point of trapping one in a glass and then shaking her, then applying her to the back of my hand just so I could get stung and get it over with."  

Instead, while working bees with me, she got stung.

I did not realize she was sensitive, so I was unconcerned.  But she was watching it all very closely, and explained that concern might be the appropriate response. Eventually, she had some reaction, but was not anaphylaxis, so we both relaxed about it a little.

And then she helped me with a hive removal this weekend.  And in the process of transferring bees from one container to another, she got hit again.  Several times, all through the glove, with limited effect.

Once she had walked away, she took off her hood, and got popped again, right behind the ear.

Shannen, taking a peek, 24' above the ground.

That one, we both paid attention to.

Eventually, the combination of tobacco poultice, alcohol rub, benadryl consumption, and ice pack worked its majick.  And she did not need a trip to the hospital nor a shot with an epi pen (I keep one with me on the job, in case someone has need.)  And then we just kept working.

Having people around me get stung is always a concern for me; I fear that people might be stung because I am working with the bees.  One of my removal jobs has resulted in three people getting stung, and it horrifies me whenever it happens.  But it does happen, even as reluctant as my girls are to commit to the sting.  They would much rather buzz you away, and not have to sting you.

Kathe is determined to come back and work with me again.  But from now on, she is going back as a wary participant.  

And she definitely coming in with her gear on.  Safety first.