Bee inspection day

7 comments

Today,24th August,Adele arrived to check on the bees .Last week she had left a tin of some sort of vaporizing chemical,inside the hive,which kills the tiny bugs that actually live on the bee ( if they are allowed )

.The bees are laying lots of eggs and the swarm is growing.They are already storing honey in the cells,and all seems to be going well with them.

Adele forgot to bring the correct gloves,and unfortunately she was stung on the hands,through the very soft leather gloves which we discovered afterwards had a sort of chemical smell on them ( they were new gloves ).
The first few minutes were OK but as she began to put the hive back together,they suddenly attacked her hands and some of the actual stings were lodged into the leather. We removed more than twenty of the barbs afterwards,and five or six had gone right through the gloves and stung her. Luckily the barbs did not enter her hands, but never the less,it was painful for her.
A lesson well learned. Always wear the correct garments which are made for the job.
The bees that used their barbs in the attack ,I think that they then die.
The noise they made was quite frightening.Really angry !!

In the year that Adele has been looking after her own four hives,she has never experienced this before.( It is also the first time that she has not worn the correct gloves)

26 Aug, 2009
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Comments

Blodyn

An interesting hobby.
I've heard bees die after they sting you. I wonder why ? It seems so pointless.

26 Aug, 2009

Bobg

Thanks Justvera, great blog and a very interesting subject.

26 Aug, 2009

Jacque

Wondeful Blog i was glued to every word :) Thanx

26 Aug, 2009

Genuisscuffy

Very interesting - I have huge bumble bees in the garden and the same goes for them they die if they sting - but bumble bees are just so dozy they move into my hand and i take them out into the garden.

26 Aug, 2009

Seaburngirl

the barbed stings are the remenants of the ovipositor [the egg laying tube of the queens] when they sting the barb pulls out part of the bee's internal organs. though not all species of bees have barbed stings apparently.

26 Aug, 2009

Justvera

To add a little more about those bee stings yesterday.

Today,Adele's hands look like a bunch of sausages !!
Very swollen and itching like mad.She is taking 'Piriton Syrup' and using 'Lanacane Cream to sooth the pain.
I was shocked to see it today.Apparently last night she was kept awake by it. Enough to make me wonder if we could have made a mistake in introducing them into my garden.

26 Aug, 2009

Seaburngirl

sometimes people become more allergic to the sting the more they are exposed to them. A school friend had to get rid of his hives as after 10yrs of keeping them he suddenly started reacting very badly to the odd sting. he got stung on average once every 2 months or so. It is the body's natural defence mechanism to do this.
You havent done the wrong thing and as you said in the blog sadly she was wearing the incorrect gloves.

27 Aug, 2009

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