When things go wrong

I had one of the worst experiences of my homesteading life this week...

While doing a very quick task in our largest, grumpiest beehive, my bee suit caught open and over 40 bees made their way inside.

As the inside of my suit filled with bees and they began stinging, I knew the critical thing was that I needed to stay calm. There was no running off screaming and crying, I couldn't call for Kevin as he is allergic and I didn't want to alarm the kids. Bees were everywhere, inside and outside of the suit and I was being stung repeatedly.

After what felt like an hour, I managed to get the suit off and run my head under the hose tap to get the many bees that had climbed into my hair out. Forty stings later, I ran to the shower while our beekeeper friend, Jim, made his way over to help get the hive back together.

I am not going to lie. I was pretty shaken. Its rare that I panic, but the moment my hair filled with bees, I could feel myself go cold. Stings covered my back, neck and head and I spend 2 days aching and worrying I would develop an allergy from the sheer number of stings. While I didn't swear off beekeeping, I wasn't planning on going back in to hive checks any time soon and our friend, Stevie, who we share the bees with was going to take over.

Less than a week later though, I was tagged in a Facebook post by a friend that a swarm needed collecting in the neighbouring village. Jim the Bee Master was off to shear sheep and I needed to go and collect it. Its all well and good saying that I was taking a break from the bees, but there isn't a day off if there is an emergency.

And so we loaded up and drove over. The swarm sat in the top of a Rowan tree on one of the main streets. As the street watched, we collected the swarm - Stevie and Ellis climbing the ladder while I ran ground control. Bees clouded around us and where I could've panicked, I knew that staying calm was the only way that it was going to work. Once the hive was collected with the queen safely inside, I drove home with a few thousand bees buzzing in my back seat.

And that, my friends, was one heck of a way to get back on the horse.

All the best!

Kat

If I haven't put you off beekeeping, we have a couple of spaces left on our beekeeping taster day next month