reading scott's reply reminds me of ed's signature (intheswamp)
Life's mystery...which side of the veil is she on?............
we have a neighbor that helps me out or helped me out especially moving hives or taking supers off, not so much anymore. he didn't want coveralls or full gear, just the tie down hat and veil. sometimes he would wear gloves, for the most part he didn't, hot, sweaty, didn't care for them.....and he was never stung under that veil or going without gloves. he just loved the bees and really enjoyed helping me.
several years ago, he came as always to help me pull supers off. we weren't standing too far from the hives, and i went to the back of my jeep to get the veil he always wore, and a pair of gloves for him.....i was going make him wear lots of coverage that day.....perhaps i jinxed him.....
i heard him swear, and i mean swear.......(navy seabee)i turned to look, and a bee or two nailed him on the nose, and inside the nose. just zinged him. didn't even have the veil on yet. so there i was trying to tell him to scrape the stingers out, and him dancing around manly and all. i managed to get the stinger out of the top of his shnoz but, okay nevermind about the one on the INSIDE of his nose. oh glory be. i gave him benadryl and tried to send him home. he wouldn't go, stayed and put the veil on and we took all the supers off.
why the fuss?......his daughter's wedding was the next afternoon........you know, wedding pictures, etc.......and his wife didn't want him coming down to help me for this reason.....
we were part of the wedding entourage, and the phone call i received from his wife when he went home........what could i say?
he wasn't allergic, but he did suffer quite a large local reaction to his nose, big red golfball looking thing, and his cheeks to his eyes.....photographers can do wondrous things with photographs to a certain extent but not photographs taken by friends and family.....
i will never forget. we had been honored and asked to ferry their daughter and her husband to be, down the river in a canoe a short distance, to waiting family/friends and the minister that married them on the banks of the river.......and there was our great friend, standing in an awesome tux, his arm around his wife, just beaming with a red oversized golf ball on his nose and his eyes nearly shut.....
it took his wife sometime to forgive me....