I have gone apiarian

There's no turning back. Today I stood in a bee yard at a local community farm with at least 30 top bar hives, bees everywhere. I came home with a wild hive from Pine Plains, NY, and another full of Russian stock/feral genes bred in NY by Sam Comfort of Anarchy Apiaries. I guess after we get better acquainted, me and the bees, I'll find out just exactly what that means. B.A.N.D. - Beekeepers Association of Northern Dutchess is set to meet at the end of the month, so I am on my own until then. I have to be up and about before the bees tomorrow morning to move them from the back yard to the 'bee yard' a little further into our back woods. I'll post some photos of the hives in the yard soon. Bee photos to follow in a few days after they adjust to their new surroundings...

So, only 1 bee sting today (on the leg) -pretty good considering I was sans bee suit and standing next to a guy wearing way too much cologne (he came to find out bees don't like that sort of thing). I haven't been stung since I was probably about 11 or 12. I'll always remember that day I was fishing with my father. We saved a honeybee that was drowning, that is, until it stung the palm of my hand and died. I put mud on the sting from the shore and the pain went away after a while. I think, maybe subconsciously, that day may have been the catalyst for all of this bee geekery. At least I'd like to think so. Its been a long time coming. (weird, Sam Cooke pops into the picture as I type this- A Change is Gonna Come) The memory is and always has been very vivid. Not the memory of the pain from the sting, but of the moments I watched the bee crawling on my hand knowing that despite the fact that it could sting me, and did, I still felt compassion for it. I was sad it stung me because I knew that meant it was going to die. Unless you are allergic, a honeybee sting really isn't so bad... think of how much worse it is for the bee.