Episode 117: Stings and Things

Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 117 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, With the weather turning cooler and rainy, it’s time to turn my attention to the new unit, preparations for the honey extraction at the end of the month, and I have a question for you, have you ever been stung!Catch up with my latest podcast hereI’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season.Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.Welcome back once again, and the British Summer continues to do it’s thing, meaning it’s raining once again, it’s been a wet week really, since the weekend we’ve had some quite heavy showers nixed in with a little sunshine but generally it’s been quite cloudy. I’ve been out inspecting where and when I could but to be honest the bees are not too keen on me crashing around when it’s wet and humid so it’s been quite intense at times. I would say this week I’ve had more stings than I’ve had all season and it’s just not pleasant. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been keeping bees the sharp jab of a bee sting is always unwelcome but actually not all stings are equal. It’s interesting that sometimes when you’re stung by one of your honeybees it’s almost as if you’ve been jabbed by a needle but the pain is instantly gone, there’s no swelling or long lasting itchiness. The flip side of this is the less pleasant sting that makes you jump and dance like some maniac, dropping your hive tool and cursing the colony with threats of robbing all their honey or worse still total destruction! Now I’m not totally serious about the whole destruction thing, not totally. Most of the time stings are the fault of the beekeeper, let’s face it, sometimes we’re clumsy and don’t always pay attention to what we’re doing and that’s when we put our fingers and thumbs where they shouldn’t be and we get stung. I remember, some time ago, and I apologise to anyone who has already heard this story, I may have already mentioned it in previous podcasts, but, it’s an amusing and also interesting situation that illustrates nicely the effects of a bee sting or two.Some years ago I was carrying out an inspection on a series of hives in a lovely little apiary ........................And on that very cheerful note we reach the end of this week’s podcast, thanks for hanging around until the end of the podcast and keep the comments coming.Please do take a look at the extra content available on my patreon page, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey I’m Stewart SpinksAnd that was Beekeeping Short and SweetSupport the show