Beekeeping

Earlier tonight I was looking at pictures on facebook of people riding a bike trail across Missouri and I told Troy that I thought that was something I want to do.
I said "Those people look just like me."
"You mean gorgeous?" He very sweetly and wisely asked.
It wasn't what I meant. I meant that they looked like people who weren't in terribly good shape, but just enjoyed being outside and active.
"I think if they can do it, I can too. At the worst I will be sore by the very end of the ride but I think I can live with that."
And he said "Hey, Jack, if you want to get honey, you're gonna get stung."

This comes from days of active beekeeping lately on his part. Last week he was at his mom's helping with cattle when he and his mom noticed her bees were swarming and he had to move them to a new hive. Then on Saturday he, Kalyn, Helen and I were driving a couple hours away to Nixa, Missouri to pick up bees they ordered at a hardware store when he got a call from his dad that the bees at his house were swarming. The bee guy at the hardware store also got called away to pick up a swarm while we were there. Someone there said there is a lot of swarming going on right now for some reason.

Well, he wanted to have at least 10 hives by the end of summer, and with the bees he and his mom bought and the two swarms he moved, he's got them! Now we wait for honey. We bought nice glass jars at the store. We will sell them for $11.00 a 2 lb jar with a dollar deposit back if you bring the jar back!

Tonight I went with Troy to look at bees because I wanted to pick some wildflowers along the way. And take some pictures with my cell phone.

He's smoking the bees at his dad's to calm them down so he can check things out. He's not wearing a bee suit because ain't nobody got time for that! When he checked it out he discovered that this hive was full of honey!

So we headed to his mom's to check out her hives. Along the way I had Troy stop and pick flowers for me. Look at these through the truck window!

  

And then we got to some country property that we own and there were wildflowers as far as the eye can see!

 Troy said "I'm not going to drive very far in here because I'll get stuck."

But he got out and picked me some white flowers because he's a good husband. And then we saw some yellow flowers off yonder and drove just a little farther and sure enough, got stuck in the mud. So we put the truck in four wheel drive and splattered mud all over.

Mud and grass splatter on the windshield.

But look at my bucket of pretty flowers! The trip is worth it to me now.

So I tried to get a little closer to look at the honey here and I got in trouble. I heard an angry bee come out of the box and directly at me. I tried to calmly back away, but he got up by my ear and really let me know he meant business. So I tried to swat him away, but he managed to get in my hair and he stung me on the back of the neck. Troy says I shouldn't have made any sudden movement. Now you try standing still while a bee is going to sting you!

Now this has happened to Troy several times. He swells up and itches when he gets stung. I have never been stung by a honey bee before. I just felt pain as that bee kept pumping his venom into my neck.  Troy came over and pulled the stinger out for me but I swear I still felt it pumping in there. I complained about it and Troy said. "Oh it doesn't hurt, really, it doesn't. It just itches." Because apparently I don't know the difference!

I never did swell up there, though. And I tried to swallow about a hundred times to make sure that I could still, but alas, I think I am not allergic to those bees.

Which is good news, because I'm sure it will happen again. Because it's like all the other things that are worth doing in life. If you're going to try to get the honey, you're going to get stung!