Worst sting ever

On April 17th I went out to check my hive and add a honey super. Little did I know what was in store for me. I had all my gear on but my gloves. I was busy carrying equipment to set it up in the bee yard. I was not even near my hive and my hand accidentally backhanded a bee. It stung me right in the middle of the back of my hand. It hurt some but not to bad. I finished adding the honey super and getting things ready for my new packages of bees. At about 9:00 that night I could feel my hand getting a little more swollen, but it did not look like the picture until the next morning. I could not move my wrist or close my hand. Monday I went to the doctors and he told me to take Pepcid and Zantec. It worked fast. By the next day I could at least close my hand. That was a relief. I felt like my had was going to explode it was so swollen. By the end of the week it was back to normal.

I was starting to look like Captain B. McCrea from Wally

On the Axiom you will survive - "I don't want to survive! I wanna live!"

(give it a second and it will play)

Year # 3

Even though I have not posted in a while, I have not forgotten about my bees. Let me get you all up to date on what I have been doing.

During these past winter months I have been keeping my bees at my house so I would not have to tromp through a field of snow to clear off the hives. As soon as the weather was getting warmer my wife wanted to be outside more and not worry about bees near her. So I moved them back to the same field they were at last year. That was on March 13th.

Before I moved the hives I checked on how they were doing and one hive was dead due to mites and starvation I think. The other hive was doing good, but I noticed that it was low on food stores. I added a feeder and syrup to the hive and then realized after the fact that I was going to move the hive in the next couple of days, oops. When I moved the hive, the syrup sloshed around and spilled everywhere all over my driveway and truck.

Here is a picture of my hive all closed up for the move. It is best to move the hives at night because bees don't fly at night so they are all in there.

One of the next few days I went back to the hive to fill it back up with the syrup and took some more pictures of the hive.

Do the Honey Bee

This makes me want to dance!

Dead Bees

This last winter I forgot to treat for mites.  I had a hive die on me :( I believe it was because they were already week from the mite infestation. Last weekend I moved my bees back to the bee yard. I hope they do as well as last year. I forgot to take picturtes of the move and the bees, but I will get some the next time I go out. My first year I had bees they did not live over the winter either, but that I believe was because they starved to death. I found this good video of what that would have looked like.