Trevor,

(Snip)

> Second, why in the world would you want to subject your face and neck to the
> possibility of being stung, I fear that the bee beard is the same type of
> "rite of passage" as kissing a rattlesnake is for the rattlesnake round-up
> folks.

I have done half a dozen of so "bee beards" over the years.  I have never
received a sting as a result of the beard.  Once someone helping mashed as bee
on my finger, and I got stung, but never from the beard.  If you think about the
status of a homeless cluster, you will realize the likelihood of a sting is
small.

From the time I began keeping bees I was interested in doing a bee beard.  It
was not, in my opinion, any sort of "rite-of-passage."  I suppose you could look
at it any way you want.  I think of the remainder of the beards I've done as
graphic illustrations of the nature of the honeybee.  Their nature is not to try
to sting anything they can find.

Tom

--
"Test everything.  Hold on to the good."  (1 Thessalonians 5:21)

Tom Elliott
Chugiak,  Alaska
U.S.A.
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