A friend keeps bees and I have become absolutely fascinated with these wonderful little creatures. They have just started harvesting the honey and will also be harvesting wax. Fascinating industrious little furries. (Edit, actually honey bees are not as furry as you might think, bumble bees are and they are really cute).
Does anyone here keep them or have friends who do?
@divegeester
I had neighbours once who did. As you say, they are cute to watch and listen to - and so necessary.
Someone once kept three hives on my dad’s smallholding some of which swarmed on a tree one day then I once I had a complete swarm descend into my garden and settle on a small Camellia shrub. It was the strangest thing to see as at the first glance it looked just like the short trunk of a palm tree had appeared in the garden. Fortunately the council were not available to come and ‘deal’ with it as their solution was to kill the swarm. We managed to contact a bee expert who arrived with a large basket. After spraying the swarm with a kind of smoke he got all but 7 bees into the basket.
I’m happy to get quite close to bees, wasps however are a nuisance. Once accidentally stepped in a wasps nest and got 7 stings on the legs and bum. I darted from the veg garden to the house, stripping off in the doorway while slapping my thighs and shouting expletives.
@divegeester saidAny possibility that I would ever have anything to do with bees disappeared when I was stung by one in Mevagissey in 1971. Indeed, I never went to Cornwall again and later moved away from the UK altogether.
A friend keeps bees and I have become absolutely fascinated with these wonderful little creatures. They have just started harvesting the honey and will also be harvesting wax. Fascinating industrious little furries. (Edit, actually honey bees are not as furry as you might think, bumble bees are and they are really cute).
Does anyone here keep them or have friends who do?
@drewnogal saidBlimey!
I darted from the veg garden to the house, stripping off in the doorway while slapping my thighs and shouting expletives.
@divegeester
Also once squashed a wasp to death with my bare fingers after it landed on my son’s plate when he was a baby 😀
@drewnogal saidMy wife and I tried this kind of thing, but in the end, we reverted to Head Butler & Governess, and Vicar & Actress, and Last Two People On Earth, and more conventional stuff like that.
I darted from the veg garden to the house, stripping off in the doorway while slapping my thighs and shouting expletives.
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@divegeester saidi have planted up my garden with bee friendly shrubs that stagger in thier flowering last year I planted an american lilac and the bees love it, the first plant to flower in late april is my currant bush this atracts miner bees one of the first to come out of hibernation, they have a nest in next doors garage and I watch them coming and going through a small hole in the pointing between bricks very entertaining.
A friend keeps bees and I have become absolutely fascinated with these wonderful little creatures. They have just started harvesting the honey and will also be harvesting wax. Fascinating industrious little furries. (Edit, actually honey bees are not as furry as you might think, bumble bees are and they are really cute).
Does anyone here keep them or have friends who do?
@drewnogal saidYears ago I tried a different approach when a bee was flying around the head of one of my then very young daughters. I said just relax and keep still and it will soon fly off. She did that beautifully and yes the inevitable happened it stung her on the tip of the nose leaving the sting with poison sac still sticking out. She now had no reason to trust me when I said just relax and keep still so I can get that off your nose without squeezing another sting into it. Again she did it beautifully.
@divegeester
Also once squashed a wasp to death with my bare fingers after it landed on my son’s plate when he was a baby 😀
(But it has got mentioned as evidence of the value of my advice over the past twenty years. Still maybe after another twenty...)
@torunn saidOur cats bring voles in and let them lose in the house to chase. So much for ridding the house of vermin. I have perfected getting an old bowl over the vole and sliding a magazine underneath. I am a trained mouser now.
I have an empty matchbox on my glazed-in balcony and any insects that are stuck in there, I just trap with the matchbox and let out in the free again.
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@drewnogal saidPoor wasp, they're far from a nuisance. Wasps are vital for the eco system, kill a lot of other bugs to keep their numbers under control and they also pollinate just like bees, so many different types of wasp you've probably seen one thinking it was a bee and not been bothered. Now, they do all die off (apart from the queen obviously) come the Autumn and can be a bit more prone to sting then if you fight with it but generally if a wasp flys near you, stay still and it be harmlessly fly away. A couple of weeks ago one landed on my lip, must have liked the smell of the beer i was drinking, just let it be and it flew away.
@divegeester
Also once squashed a wasp to death with my bare fingers after it landed on my son’s plate when he was a baby 😀