Some years ago, a beekeeping acquaintance told me that he had never
seen a queen in his bee colonies and asked if I would show him a queen.
As I stood in my shorts and tee shirt watching him suiting up, I said,
"Where's your smoker?"
   "What's a smoker?" he replied.
    So I showed him how to smoke the bees and showed him the queens in
his colonies.
    Most of us on this list have probably watched someone else open a
colony of bees, and many of us have shown the inside of a colony to
other people. We need to remember that some of the people on our Bee-L
list have not had a chance to watch a hive being opened; some of them
may live a long way from another beekeeper.
    In 1971, when I was shown how to open and inspect a hive, I was
stung through my bluejeans (trousers), and I wondered what I had gotten
myself into!
    I did not see the queen in my own colony (a captured swarm) until
eleven months later. The note in my journal says: "April 23, Saw the
Queen! Wasn't looking for her."
    Queen bees seem most obvious when I am not looking for them and are
most difficult to find when I am looking for them.
Tim
--
Tim Sterrett
[log in to unmask]
(southeastern) Pennsylvania, USA
40.0 N 75.5 W