Aaron mentioned earlier about assuming nothing. More to the point, 
don’t believe everything you see and, especially, hear.

A fellow beekeeper (I’ll call her “Betty”) works locally as a radio 
news reporter.  Due to her schedule Betty didn’t feel she had the time 
to look after bees. I have the time so we split the cost of the bees, 
and divide the honey at season’s end. She provides the equipment and I 
look after them at her house. One afternoon I was tending her bees when 
Betty was getting home from work.  Betty thought ‘a local beekeeper’ 
would provide a nice human interest section for her news program. So, 
as I was inspecting her hives, she took out her recorder and started 
interviewing me.

Since the bees were well behaved, and it was a nice day, I didn’t have 
a veil on and was dressed in a tee shirt and jeans. Betty asked some 
general beekeeping questions along some good questions about Alaska 
beekeeping practices. A few days later the interview aired over the 
radio.  In her news reporter voice leading up to the interview Betty 
began describing how I was dressed. She portrayed me as wearing a 
“bee-proof” veil, a white beekeeping suit tucked into rubber boots, and 
“sting-proof” gloves, none of which I was wearing at the time, but I 
guess that’s how the public expects a beekeeper to be dressed.

Regards,
Dick Allen

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