African Colonized bees 2 team O’Mikey 1

So, I went beekeeping again Thursday evening with my friend Yaya. It was a similar situation as before, a hive that hasn’t been opened in over a year and we decided to open it.  It was going well until I started feeling the stings from the bees.  It started in my hands then on my neck and then one in my eyebrow.  I could feel it and there was nothing I could do because my hands where one the smoker and opening the bucket so Yaya could put the comb into it.  I was getting stung so much I could feel my heartbeat increase and my body almost seemed to start throbbing.  I am not sure if it was adrenaline or just my freaking out but it was crazy.

The hive was a mess, the comb was perpendicular to the top bars, which is bad.  We cut out as much as the old comb as we could and filled our two bucket with good capped and uncapped comb and called it a day.  We had about 45 minutes until it was dark and from my limited experience, the bees seem to leave you alone and go back to their hive once the sun goes down.  We walked about 30 yards away from the hive and dropped the buckets.  We walked a few hundred yard away and found some small leafy branches and started swatting bees away from us and off each other.  Mainly we do this because the farther you go from the hive the more likely the bees will go home.  The problem is there is no brush to walk through to trick them or hide from them.  We were in a large rice field with some trees so there was no hiding just waiting and swatting. 

After the sun went down the bees went home.  We took our suits off and I started assessing the damage.  My right hand had already started to swell and the side of my face hurt.  I had Yaya look at it but he said it looked fine.  Once I got home and looked in the mirror my eye and around it had started to swell, my family laughed and asked if I was wearing the bee suit?  I said of course, but they didn’t understand how I could of gotten stung so much.  I didn’t try to explain the most Africans are smaller than I, thus the one size fits all suits are tight on my which makes it easy for bees to sting me. 

Friday morning I get up and roll over and I thought I rolled over onto my flashlight but no, it was just my swollen face. Then I realized that I could only see out of one of my eyes and I started laughing.  I looked at my arms and hands with my one good eye and they look like marshmallows.  In all I had about 20 stings.  So, I then made the journey outside and my family all went “oooooo”, and “EHHHHH” I just started laughing because I can do nothing else.  People started calling me “Forday one eye.”   I came to the realization that when you’re a one eyed white kid in a village people are going to point and ask what happened and laugh.  People asked what happened and I just would say “bees, not good.” 

It took a couple days but I am not better and no lasting effects.  I have just realized that African Colonized honeybees stings are little worse than the bees in America.


the next morning after being stung



The rain and my compound

The rain again

here is a link of a picture from another blog of me working hard

That’s all until the next story