People’s eyes either light up with delight or furrow in thought as they think of an excuse to not help you out in the apiary. My wife, a credit to her soul, is always up for trying something new at least once. And one of those instances was when I requested her help in the bee yard.
I did not really need much help but I thought I could introduce her to the wonderful world of beekeeping and get her hooked.
The weekend was perfect, late September, and not a cloud in the sky. We rolled up close to the hives in my car and unloaded the equipment. At the time I did not have an extra suit and I assured Nina that she would not need to get too close to the hive. While I was preparing for everything I asked her to take the two 1 gallon pails to my uncles house and fill them up with a 2:1 ratio of sugar to water. I wanted to give my bees a little extra help for their winter larder.
While she was away I smoked the entrances of the hives to get them to settle a bit and then began the inspection of them. I am sure I was thinking to myself, “This is going to be great! My own wife will become my first student to beekeeping and she will eventually want some hives of her own. Beekeeping will become a great Bellavance family tradition.”
When Nina came back carrying the two buckets I had her place them down next to the car and I motioned her to come over. I showed her the layout of the hive and explained some of the basic fundementals concerning keeping the bees. Special importance was placed on being gentle and knowing exactly what you wanted to do before starting.
After about 30 minutes we were done and I began to close up the hive. With almost everything stacked I began the last step of closing the hives by inverting the sugar water pails over the inner cover. That was when the Johnstown sugar flood of Bellavance Apiaries, colony #2, took place.
I had forgotten to check to see if Nina had firmly placed the lids on the sugar water pails. As a result, a torrent of sugar water plunged into the heart of the hive and created a deluge of disaster from out of the entrance. Hundreds of bees were ejected from the front like miniature Hawaiians surfing a 30 foot set at Pipeline. A second later thousands of bees exploded out of the front of the hive and began swarming around with a determined effort to find the god-like being who had wrecked havoc upon their world. Luckily I was in my bee suit. Unlucky for Nina for she was only wearing some jeans and fleece pullover. To the bees she probably looked like a blue bear because they went after her with vigilance. Nina began the ever so popular bee dance and ran for the hills with arms waving and swatting at the hive minded horde.
Amazingly she did not suffer one single sting. Her hair was displaced and demeanor a bit heightend but other than that everything was OK. In my mind the dreams of having my better half helping me into old age burned like the Hindenburg. It’s been 10 years since and I have yet to ask her again.
