Most of my friends here in Iowa are rednecks.. I grew up with them before moving away for 20 plus years, but the saying goes, you can take the boy out of the country, but you can never take the country out of the boy...
SO I find myself trying to help said friend deal with the one and only hive of bees he has.. they must be some mix of carni and feral bees, but they are quite mean.. I put an excluder on, raised brood into the excluder, let the nurse bees cap it.. killed the queen, and the next morning installed a new queen from the local breeder nearby. Candy plug opened... CHecked back in about a week and a half.. no queen, no eggs... tried again without the excluder... they killed this queen too... So, I am thinking, maybe give them brood and eggs from my hives... I go to said friends house.. he has the torches sitting out near the hive.. I think to myself... hes going to burn them.. He came out and said, you have to come watch this...
We go out toward the hive. Its about fifty yards from his house sitting by the back fence to his field... He stops about thirty yards from the hive, and picks up a wire, and pulls a nine volt battery from his pocket.. I am mildly confused as he lines up the wires, and I look at the torch cart sitting beside the hive.. the rags stuffed into the entrance, the torch head still sticking IN the entrance.. I didnt have enough time to yell, or run....
The concussion was deafening. it SHOOK me inside and out, like being puched in the stomach hard enough you cant breathe.
Two of the four windows in the back of his house are broken. From my position, which was flat on my back looking upward, I see the telescoping cover coming spiraling down to land about five feet from us, broken and twisted, held together by the metal top, the inner cover nowhere to be seen..
NOTHING is left of the hive. Shattered shrapnel of wood and plastic frames everywhere. Pieces of broken super laying all about, some well past us, and the two windows broken were apparently HIT by these pieces.
The only fire is from the torch, which was apparently ignited by the explosion. it lay on the ground where it fell burning happily, the tanks now lay on their back, but still in the cart.
We are both peppered with splinters and dead bees... I can barely hear, My ears are ringing, I am thinking were lucky to be alive as he sits up and begins brushing himself off..
"HA!!! See? Told you you'd want to see it!"
They say the good Lord looks over drunks and fools.. I hope he knows I appreciate his intervention!
As far as I could tell, EVERY single bee died in the massive blast, if the Acetylene and oxygen mix from the torches hadn't already killed them.
No police showed up.. since we dont have any, but the local fire chief stopped in about ten minutes later to survey the damage.. I am NOW sitting up, still looking myself over wondering If I am wounded or not. Fire chief, (And long time family friend) never said a word... walked over to the former location of the hive, shut off the torch... walked back past us.. "That worked!" and kept on going...
Just a redneck story to add to Mrs Rivers stories. Hope it was worth the read!
