Status Report 39
Shoulder pain
rises like a tsunami
washing way my best.
– Smith, 7.11.2015
I strained my replaced shoulder couple weeks ago moving our used freezer. Was almost healed until yesterday when I way overused it harvesting our first honey. So back to the undrawing board. Basically cannot use my left arm today.
We got 20-25 pounds of honey from 7 honeysuper frames – there are 10 frames in a box. For our fall honey harvest, we should do much more.
Cool tasting first honey from our first hive. Sooooooooo sweet. Got 10,000 bees April 21, and two and a half months later have 50-60,000 bees and 25 pounds of honey.
We keep spending money on bee equipment too, have at least $500 in this first hive. Much of it one-time costs though, stuff that can be used on future hives.
The gods laugh. I got tired of being stung and swelling up so for yesterday’s hive inspection and honey harvest, I wore protective gear for the first time . . . but forgot to tuck in my shirt so a bee crawled up and stung my bare belly. Then an hour later up in the house after I had changed my tee-shirt and was sitting around talking to folk, another bee who must have come in on my pants crawled up and stung my belly 2 inches away from the first sting. Expected to wake to a swollen belly today but it’s not bad . . . red, slightly itchy, barely swollen. Unsure why the double sting is so mild. Maybe area of body, maybe young bees, maybe getting used to venom, maybe because I took benadryl multiple times this time, maybe none of the above.
So far four single stings and one double sting in last 6 hive inspections. Next time, none.
But there is one intriguing possibility . . . if one of the bees that stung me is also a bee that made a portion of the fresh honey I ate, the honey and venom intermix and I can mutate into BuzzMan, always buzzed but never having to toke – rather the same principle of Peter Parker turning into Spiderman after being bitten by a radioactive spider. Hmmmmm, the closest nuclear plant to Ashtabula is only 19 miles away at Perry
banner Lady K did for Greater Cleveland Beekeepers Association