What's in a name

My entire life has been spent around honey bees. My Dad was a hobbyist beekeeper who, in his later years, ran a small bee supply shop from his garage. Sometimes when he was working with his hives, he would bring me a drone bee to play with. Drone bees are the males. They don't sting and are usually put out of the hive by the other bees. He would bring one to me and I would let it walk around on my hands until it flew away.

 Sometimes I went with him when we was called to pick up a swarm. Swarms land in the oddest places, a mail box, a bench in front of the library, and they always attracted a crowd. One thing that really bothered him was people saying "Don't you get bitten?" "I don't want them to bite me" "I got a bee bite"

Have you ever seen a honeybee's face? They don't have teeth. They sting from their backside and they only do that when they have no other option because when they sting, they die. OK, so now Dad's pet peeve is mine. That's what the name of this blog is about. Honeybees do not bite!

June 19, 2014- Day 1- While I have many, many years of knowledge, I have practically no hands on experience with beekeeping but that is about to change! This morning, in the pouring rain, I picked up a nuc from a local beekeeper and deposited it in my backyard on the hive stand where it will live. Nuc, short for nucleus hive, is a small function beehive with workers, a laying queen, drones and various phases of eggs and larvae.  Later today or maybe tomorrow, I'll move the girls and their brothers and mother into a new bigger house where they will, hopefully, work hard and live happily and get themselves through the winter. That's my hope for them. Next year, I will hope for extra honey for me, this year, survival is all I want.

Adjacent to my yard there are 2 mature American Chestnut trees which is rare. American Chestnuts were nearly wiped out in the 1950s because of a blight. These trees flower in early June with long strings of blossoms called catkins which are very stinky, not fragrant, just stinky. When the blossoms wither and fall off the tree, they really smell bad and they make a collective mess which has to be raked up. Anyway, the trees are in bloom and the new bees are loving them! At first, we wondered where they bees were going since they were coming back with full pollen baskets but we didn't see them on any ofour flowers. Then we looked up. The chestnut trees were full of bees...my bees! Our family nickname for those trees is "stinky tree" so I may have "stinky tree" honey!

June 20, 2014- Day 2- Decided not to transfer the bees into the real hive until tomorrow. I'm thinking they just need some time to adjust to having moved from their original home. The dog is curious about them. We walked near the hive and watched as they flew around. He was having a hard time keeping track of all of them so he gave up and came back to sit on my lap.