First the great news. Despite all that has gone on this year I'm still here! My leukemia is still in remission. I have 5 days of chemotherapy in December & 5 in March and hopefully that is the end of it.
The not so great news is I will definitely be spending that time & more as far from the bees as I can. Last month, I had a systemic reaction to one sting & had been very Leary about going close to the hives in the backyard.
Sunday, Jill was going to mow, I went for gas and decided I would mow the front yard, I got that done and I figured I could make a couple of passes by the house. I did all I was going to do and turned the mower around. That was when I noticed that the wind was blowing all the dust into the hives.
One of them took exception to it. They came after me from across the yard. I don't know how many stings I took but it was 20 plus, All on my head neck and arms. I didn't know they were on me until it was too late,
I ran in the house with lots of them in tow, Jill got the credit card to start scraping stingers out and I got the Auvi-Q (like an epi-pen but more compact & it talks you through it. The first BP check after that was 75/49. The second was 62/39 as we were headed to the ER,
They got me right into a room and things got uglier from there. When things finally got stable the doc told me the pen definitely saved my life. That would have been a heck of a note to survive the 30% chance they gave me with the cancer and die from a fun enjoyable hobby,
So I guess I am going to see if a buddy can requeen some hives for me and tend to them while I finish my chemotherapy and start my immunotherapy.
All in all, it had been à fun year. We made 225 lbs. of honey and sold every bit we have bottled. We were planning how much more equipment we needed for next year but now we have to take another look at it.