STING OF CONFIDENCE

..Or how not to take your bees for granted

 I HAVE just been Suárezed. Well, not quite bitten but stung and it's all my own fault. Growing in confidence as a beekeeper I have been working on the hives this year without relying on the smoker as I feel it aggravates the bees rather than pacifies them. Instead I've taken to hanging around the apiary observing my little workers coming and going from their variety of hives.

SITTING PRETTY: The octagonal Warre hive 

next to the Top Bar in my apiary

 The aim of this was so they would get used to me and my scent so when I do go looking inside the hives and inspect their frames for signs of pests or random queen cells they won't be unduly bothered. That's the theory anyway.

 Unlike most beekeepers who stick to one make my apairy has a collection of hives including a rather magnificent octagonal Warre and a handmade Top Bar as well as a couple of Nationals and a Smith's hive.

 Just yesterday a fellow beekeeper saw the Warre and never having seen one before began asking questions. We moved nearer the hives while I confidently reassured him that my bees are lovely and cuddly, even the very noisy black ones in a National nearby.

 And then, throwing caution to the wind, I lifted off the lid of the Warre so he could look inside for himself. Having done this I replaced the lid and it was then that I felt the slightest twinge of a needle sharp pain just above my right eyebrow.

CORRECT DRESS: Hubby & I wearing

the right kit for hive inspections

 "I've been stung, we'd best move away," I declared calmly and so we walked slowly from the hive. Once a sting has been discharged it emits a warning smell to the other bees in the area letting them know they are under attack. Fearing more bees stings would follow we made a sharp exit.

 It is imperative to remove the bee sting asap as, despite having detached itself from the bee's body, the damned thing continues to pump poison into the flesh wound. Remove the sting the wrong way and you only succeed in pumping more toxins into your skin so you need to sort of flick out the barbed spike quickly.

 This was done and I was left feeling slightly sore but otherwise fine. Off I went to do some comfort shopping in Hawick cursing myself for having been so wreckless. By the time I got home there was a small swelling above my eyebrow and painwise it was bearable - nothing like the sting I got on my ankle last year which was really off the scale in terms of agony for several days.

 This morning I woke up and was confonted with an image I barely recognised on looking in the mirror. A version of John Merrick, the Elephant Man, was staring back at me.

 He-who-should-be-obeyed-but-rarely-is is away this weekend but he expressed a rather uncharacteristic degree of schadenfreude instead of synpathy down the line as I told him what happened and that I had not been wearing my protective veil. There would have been more smugness forthcoming until I pointed out that I looked like a battered wife and people might think this was his work.

ONE IN THE EYE: By this morning I began to resemble The 

Elephant Man

 But at the end of the day I can not blame anyone else for this act of stupidity and recklessness other than myself. The poor bee who caused this mess with her sting is now dead - once a worker discharges the sting its fate is sealed. Believing her hive to be under attack she did what was required and in a selfless act of sacrifice went after the nearest threat.

 It's my first sting of the year and I hope it will be my last. Never again will I take my honeybees for granted.

 On a lighter note, I was reading somewhere how beauty writers think Kate Middleton's flawless complexion is down to bee venom facials. Apparently the beesting treatment costs around £100 a pop and is the latest 'celebrity must have' to get rid of wrinkles and is supposedly used by Simon Cowell, Victoria Beckham, Kylie Minogue and other A-listers. As you can see from the picture above the lines in my right eye have certainly vanished but so has my sight!