Yesterday (October 17, 2002), I was installing ½” wire-mesh-mouse-guards
now that I was finally on Fall Break, for nightly the mercury had started
to sink into the 40’s.  Although it was cold in the morning, it was balmy
70’s when I was attaching the wire-guards.  There was little wind to speak
of.  It was one of those paradisal days here on earth right before the
cyanide of frost stiffens every living creature.  I finished one apiary on
an Experimentation Farm [Ladino clover] without any incident, but when I
worked on one of my Carniolan hives across town, huge black bees boiled
out, as I *gingerly* hammered in three U-shaped, smallest fence nails, on
the edges of the hive and one at the center.  I wore my veil, but used no
smoke, as I wont to, especially since I was wearing my early winter
clothing—but was wearing a sandal, over a pair of white, cotton socks.  A
dozen of them got me on the exposed top of my feet through the sock,
forcing me to whimper a fowl language, unawares.  The ground zero felt
like a pin-cushion that I had to quit the job, walked back to my pick-up,
and had to put on a pair of plastic gloves on my feet, the best resource I
had under the circumstance.  Although my socks gave me some measure of
protection, my left foot swelled up, not too much but just enough that I
had to loosen my shoestring when I jogged later in the evening.  The next
day the small swelling had gone completely although I still could feel the
sensation of getting stung there.  While growing up, I used to have a
systemic reaction to ground hornets.  But as I get stung numerous times in
a given year by honeybees, I feel safe.  It seems the first sting in the
early spring makes me swell a little since during winter I have not been
exposed to any sting.  Also, I try to calm myself down *mentally* when I
am under a massive attack, say, while taking down a feral colony, trying
to be aware what is happening around and inside me, something that I have
developed over the years.