I just read an interesting article in the latest issue of Bee Culture sitting on my desk. It talks about how minuscule amounts of bee venom can cause severe reactions in humans. How does this happen?
A typical day in the bee yard involves driving out to your bee yard, if your lucky yours is tucked away behind your house, and suiting up. With your smoker fired up and puffing away you gently smoke the hive entrance of your hive and give a few puffs down from the inner cover of the hive you are about to work on. The bees believing their hive is on fire will rush down to the honeycombs and begin chugging vasts amount of honey to carry away in case Armageddon has truly come upon their hive. With their bellies full, they become more torpid and less inclined to sting. This is the ideal time to begin work.
Many beekeepers work barehanded believing they have more finesse when working with their bees. I find this to be true until the fifth sting. At that point the bees have marked my hand with several invisible signs saying “Sting Here”. The gloves come on and yes my technique becomes slightly more ham-fisted. Even if I had the steady hands of a neurosurgeon, I would still likely incur more stings. Honeybees have the uncanny ability of finding an opening in your clothing. Sometimes they will even sting the side of your head through the wire mesh of the veil if it is not situated properly on your head.
Once finished the beekeeper will move on to the next hive and repeat the cycle. With all of the hives inspected and maintained it is time to go home and have a cold one. Usually I will roll up my bee suit and put it in my open top hive toolbox or hang it on a hook in the basement without a care in the world. Therein lies the problem according to this article. This seemingly benign act opens up the door for potentially severe problems for your loved ones in the house, especially children.
Most beekeepers are stung so many times they develop antibodies which protect them against the proteins found in venom. However the rest of the family may not be so lucky. The clothing of the beekeepers hive becomes imbued with residual amounts of dried bee venom that the other family members in the house will unknowingly inhale. Exposure of very low amounts of bee venom protein on an erratic basis will program the body to produce the “bad” antibodies that lead to an allergic reaction to the bee venom.
This can lead to severe reactions such as itching, swelling, hives, and in a worse case scenario, breathing.
Beekeepers need to be aware of this especially if they are taking their children or grand children out to the hives for the first time. If they have shown these types of reactions in the past it is more than likely they will have a severe reaction out in the bee yard. You need to be prepared for a worse case scenario.
In this case an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Help reduce the chances of your loved ones having a reaction by:
That’s it. Not too much involved to save your kins life. You can also get your family involved with beekeeping. Their constant exposure of larger amounts of bee venom will allow them to build up these “good” antibodies and help prevent a severe allergic reaction. However not everyone is willing to work in the bee yard and you have to respect their wishes by showing due diligence in protecting them from potential reactions.
So remember. When you get home from the bee yard. Take it off. Wash it off.
Ahhh this clears my sinuses better than Thera-Flu
Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that:
“If bees disappeared off the surface of the globe then men would only have four years of life left.”
Whether Einstein said this or not is debatable. However the chaos that could ensue if our pollinating friends moved on may be more fact than hyperbole.
The pressure the honeybee is currently under is real. By now most people know that the tracheal and varroa mites have done severe damage to both feral and managed colonies. Virtually all feral colonies have been wiped out and beekeepers are struggling to keep pace with the ever evolving mites and their growing resistance to the miticides used to control them. On top of this, include a heaping topping of Colony Collapse Disorder, poisoning through gross application of pesticides, American Foul Brood, the hive beetle, honey bee dysentery, and the wax moth. Eventually a threshold will be reached in which the honeybee will simply succumb and fade away. We may be seeing this now.
What does this mean for you? It may not lead to the end of the world or Soilent Green but it will surely lead to a much blander culinary experience.
Yummie new flavors coming out of Vermont soon!
Imagine if you will the new flavors that will be coming out of Ben and Jerry’s. How does Mr Potato Dead Head ice cream sound? Mmmmm Mmm. Mom can we get another gallon of that or maybe a Funky Monkey Oat Bran Sorbet?
Honeybees are a major contributor to our food menus. All of the sweet explosions that occur in your mouth when you plop a blueberry or an apple down your gullet are here because of Apis Mellifera (honeybee). Their simple action of traveling from blossom to blossom, gathering nectar and pollen, initiates the fertilization process which leads to a cornucopia of fruity colors at your local Whole Foods. Below is just a quick sample of fruits and vegetables pollinated by honey bees. Kiwi fruit, onions, broccoli, cabbage, papaya, watermelon, tangerine, COFFEE, cucumber, squash, persimmon, soybean, lychee, blueberries, cranberries, etc. In total they pollinate about 90 of our common everyday garden plants. It would be unfair to say that honeybees did all of the work. There are several other insects that also pollinate such as bumble bees, alfalfa leaf cutter bees, orchid bees, solitary bees, and some species of flies. A few of these insects are actually better pollinators for specific crops types but they do not lend themselves well to animal husbandry. Have you ever tried to manage a heard of bumble bees. It can get real ugly. However the honeybee can be neatly packaged in a box, shipped over vast distances, and setup in a relatively short period of time. For example, every year hundreds of thousands of hives are brought in to California, some from as far away as Florida, for the almond industry.
Besides honey and pollination the honeybee also contributes of itself with their production of wax. Obviously wax is used to make candles but it is also used heavily by the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry. In the area of skin care, one can find beeswax used in lip gloss, lip balm, hand products such as creams, lotions, and moisturizers. One may also find beeswax in cosmetics, such as eye shadow, blush, and eye liner. The pharmaceutical industry uses it as a stiffening agent in topical ointments, as a stabilizer for water and oil emulsions, and as a polishing agent in sugar coating.
In total it is estimated that honeybee related activity contributes over 18 billion dollars to our national economy.
But lets get back to an alternative reality where the honeybee has disappeared. How would your life change? What would you lose?
In the morning you might first wash up and grab your charcoal briquette chalk sticks to put on your eyeliner. The goth look is apparently back in style in our new reality inversion. Later, as you sit down for breakfast you might have a bowl of oatmeal with a tall glass of refreshing rice gruel, followed by some oat toast and a hot cup of steaming Malt-O coffee. Luckily sugar is still on the menu so you can sweeten the hell out of it until you don’t taste the roasted malt.
After putting on your polyester pants, shirts, socks, bra, and underwear you get in your car to drive to work. Oh yes cotton clothes are still available to the uber wealthy for 400.00 dollars a square yard. On the way, you notice that there are far fewer flowers in the grass and the variety of trees has been noticeably reduced. Oh well, Everybody Loves Raymond reruns are on tonight! When you get to work you have another steaming cup of Malt-O and start your day.
As lunch roles around your stomach begins to crave some Chinese food. Unfortunately the only thing on the menu is deep fried General Tsao chicken/beef dough balls with rice. The broccoli that used to swim in the General Tsao sauce is a distant memory and is now replaced with potatoes.
The siren blows and it is time to leave work. But first lets stop in the grocery store and get some victuals for dinner. As you walk in you notice that Blackwater has once again shot a shopper trying to touch the small selection of strawberries reserved for the super wealthy. Being a plebe you walk past the “hoity-toity” food and enter the garden section for the common folk. To your right you see 37 varieties of potatos and to your left sacks of grains stacked to the rafters. Rice, barley, oats, wheat. You pick up some flour, yeast, milk, and a case of beer.
After your meal of overbaked bread, you plop down in front of the tv and get shit-faced drunk off of your case of beer and smile stuipidly as you watch Raymond at it again with his friends.
Before rolling into bed you have to take your heart medication using nitro-glycerin suppositories because the HMO’s won’t cover pills any longer. Careful don’t drop them.
Well, life would not be this bad. But it could be. At least you will still have beer.
In the meantime you can do a few things to help the bees.
Remember, bees are your friends.
