The Beekeeping Journey

First off, I wasn’t doing anything particularly invasive, I just needed to put on the next hive body. I forgot to put something in my smoker (grass, leaves, paper, woodchips, etc.) as well as bring a lighter. Plus, it was raining. It was only a drizzle, but bees don’t like being messed with in the rain. I discovered my mistake when I got to my bees and took out my smoker. I didn’t want to go all the way back to the house to get the fuel and the lighter, plus my bees have always been extraordinarily gentle, so I figured that I could just take out the feeder, put in the frames, and be done with it without getting stung. I took out the feeder without any trouble, but then came the part where I realized the two pieces of wood that I was using to support it was glued down to the frames, and was covered in bees. I couldn’t put all the frames in while it was in there. Wisely thinking that it would be a bad idea to stick my hand in there, I got out my hive tool and tried to pry it off. That’s when I discovered how difficult this would be. The bees immediately attacked my hive tool, the red part, which looks black to them. I managed to pry it off, and then ran a bit to get away from the resulting bees. Next part was the hard bit; I had to somehow pick up the small piece of wood without using my hands, and only using my hive tool. I gave up on that after about five minutes of trying, and another five minutes of running away from angry bees. I tried the second piece, which magically came out with the first try, the porporis stuck to the tool, so all I had to do was flick it off of it and run like the wind about twice the distance that I was previously running. After that I turned my attention on the first frustrating piece. Using both my bee brush and my hive tool, I managed to pick it up and fling it away from me while simultaneously running from my bees. The last part of my visit was easy, all I had to do was put the top on, which I did without incident. Miraculously, I did not get stung once, despite the fact that the bees were really mad. Afterwards, I filled up my feeder and put it in.

You really shouldn’t run from bees, they can easily out fly you, the proper response is to calmly walk away and hide behind a bush, and blow smoke on yourself. I had neither a bush nor smoke, so I just kinda ran a ways until the bees that kept attacking my suit stopped. It isn’t very far until they decide you are chased away before returning to the hive. I definitely won’t forget my smoker again.