Allen said:
I'd appreciate any constructive comments.

Well done!

I was amused at the following statement:

Allen wrote:
"Some beekeepers consider stings to be a huge joke,but stings should be
taken with some seriousness. if at all possible"

"if at all possible" meaning that there are times when its ok to laugh at a
funny bee sting incident.  I  have seen a few funny incidents in which I had
to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

"with some seriousness" meaning not to laugh at the time but later when
alone.

I had a unusual stinging incident happen in the honey house today.  I know
what the problem is as I have seen the problem before.

Problem :
Myself and two helpers were working in the honey house. I was running the
uncapper and a helper was putting frames in an extractor and another person
was sorting out MT frames to speed up the process. I noticed a small hole in
a super with bees around the hole and decided to move the super to another
part of the honey house as none of us were wearing protection. My two
helpers were women and women do not (from past experience) like getting
stung.

When I reached for the super about four  bees flew out and stung me. I
backed off for a minute and then picked up the super and put the super in
another area of the honey house and about four other bees flew out stinging.

For fun without reading  further try to figure out why the stinging? Then
read on .


Answer:
The queen had  somehow moved above the queen excluder and had started her
nest. I had a helper pulling supers yesterday and he had not noticed the
brood and had put the super with the queen ,brood and guard bees on the
truck.

My helper yesterday was a good worker and said he would be back today but
was a *no show*. I will miss him!

The bees had been using the small hole as an entrance and were guarding the
super  as they would their hive. I have got a large screened exit to the
outside on the honey house and a hive outside to catch the bees exiting the
honey house. When I saw the small circle of bees around the hole I should
have known what the problem was. I never told the girls or showed the girls
my stings as help is hard enough to find for the honey house and even the
thought of stinging makes the help nervous. I try to remove all bees from
the honey house before extracting.

When you bring in sealed brood alone with honey supers  you get young bees
emerging but they are very docile and can not even sting until three days
old. Not the case today! I will remove the queen and brood tomorrow and
install her in a nuc before the help arrives.

The above is not news to longtime beekeepers but many on the list might
find the above interesting and helpful.  We were using fume boards to pull
supers yesterday  which is when you are most likely to bring in sealed brood
in honey supers. My helper was getting tired at the last yard and was
putting supers on the truck with quite a few bees in the boxes.


Bob

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