What's the worst mistake you ever made as a beekeeper?

[CBT]

There is a list but one that sticks out is working some bees without a veil when I had shingles on my neck and getting popped sending my reaction level into orbit.

[Jen]

Ooooooh CBT.... Geez! We'll just say that you were not in your right mind that day.

I keep trying to get hubby in to get a shingles shot. And I need to get another one. Guess they only last 5 years.

[Mosti]

The worst?  Wearing thin socks when checking an aggressive queenless hive which was already aggressive enough when queenright.....I couldn't walk for 24hrs.

[Lburou]

Not necessarily my worst mistake, (how do you choose from such a long list anyway), but I was moving my first swarm to a friend's house when, at a stoplight in the center of town, the hive slid off the bottom board.      Bees got out and were looking for the perpetrator.  The pickup had a topper, so that helped.  What did not help was that I had no smoke and no veil...But I got things back in place and proceeded, a little more slowly, to the bee's new home.  A sadder, but wiser man at the destination.   

[Wandering Man]

Probably my worst mistake was trying to do an OAV treatment on a hot August night with a dying battery.  Trying to trap the bees inside and running the vaporizer the second time was my big mistake.

That, and not making sure my bee suit wasn't fully secure.

Ouch.

[Jen]

Lee, learning from stories like yours over the years I have learned to duck tape the bottom board, box, and lid together before moving it towards my vehicle for a travel. Your story reminds me of one that Riverbee had with bees that came loose in her car years ago. 

[Lburou]

Lee, learning from stories like yours over the years I have learned to duck tape the bottom board, box, and lid together before moving it towards my vehicle for a travel. Your story reminds me of one that Riverbee had with bees that came loose in her car years ago. 

I use the big staples now to fasten the bottom board to the first hive body.  Sometimes inconvenient, but always together. 

[riverbee]

"Lee, learning from stories like yours over the years I have learned to duck tape the bottom board, box, and lid together before moving it towards my vehicle for a travel. Your story reminds me of one that Riverbee had with bees that came loose in her car years ago.  "

lol, jen it wasn't my vehicle, it was a friends......an older 4 door buick that had no air conditioning and smelled very badly, one of my brighter moments of trying to help another bright beekeeper out......   a couple of einsteins......
the story..........

A new standard on how not to transport bees

"this is how not to move bees in an old 4 door buick loaded in the backseat and a trunk full of bees:

advice for moving bees in an enclosed vehicle of any sort, especially when things come undone......

if a friend asks you to help out, (don't volunteer) bring a veil, matter fact, just wear it.
and don't volunteer to drive.
if the vehicle has had bee go spilled in it, (definitely do not volunteer) or a very strong smell of dog urine in it, or both. definitely do not volunteer.
if you do volunteer, even if it's hot, wear a suit and veil, you won't regret it. the bees want out and so do you......
you don't want to use a smoker in this case.....

if you drive the freeway, speeding is the natural course of action.
this will only delay your progress.
when the state patrol knocks on the window in the state of wisconsin, seeing 2 keeps in veils and realizes there is a vehicle full of bees, you will get a ticket......think.....hot. vehicle off, air-conditioning off or not working and bees flying everywhere inside, and the trooper trying to figure out how to communicate.....

meanwhile, bee go/dog urine suffocation sets in while you are waiting for your ticket, bees flying everywhere trying to get out.  your drivers license and registration will still be required to pass through the small crack rolled up to the top of the drivers window, and you will be given a ticket.... or two or three for other things they can think of that don't quite fit the driving safe regulations on wisconsin freeways."

the hives (double deeps) 2 in the backseat, 2 in the trunk, they were strapped.  the straps came undone, hmmm should have double checked the straps, i didn't.  the trooper was very annoyed and afraid of being stung, wouldn't let us roll down the windows, it was very hot, and bees all over inside the vehicle..........lots of yelling through the drivers window and charade?........he pasted his cell phone number up to the window to call him when he ran back to his squad car..........

i was not happy trying to load deep boxes into the back of a buick........she said two, turned out to be 4.  amazing what you can fit in the back of an older buick............heck i volunteered another time to load a 350 lb or so pig in the back of a buick.........

no more buick bees or pig volunteering...........

[Green bee]

This is definitely a classic Riverbee,  thanks for sharing it. I had a good mental picture of what was going on as I read your story. You could have offered over the bees for evidence and placed them in his car  did you end up getting a ticket?

[Wandering Man]

This is definitely a classic Riverbee,  thanks for sharing it. I had a good mental picture of what was going on as I read your story. You could have offered over the bees for evidence and placed them in his car  did you end up getting a ticket?

Sounds to me like she got enough tickets to reupholster the car.

[Jen]

Great Story! Enjoyed reading that again Riv 

[Les]

OMG Riverbee, we laughed out loud.  After our recent first cut out, we drove home in our veils and jackets because there were too many escapees that wanted to stay with the hive.  Thank goodness it was evening and no one could see us.

[rober]

I pondered on this for awhile. my biggest mistake aside from taking perry's advise is learning patience. classic example- I had a hive that swarmed this spring. in the original hive I found a queen. after 3 weeks of no brood I concluded that because of almost 12 straight days of rain that she'd been unable to breed. some queens were due to arrive so I pulled a frame & the queen was on it so I snuffed her without looking any further ( I had checked this hive 2 days earlier ). the next day when I went to install a new queen, guess what? in the 2 days that had passed before I snuffed this queen she'd laid near 2 frames of brood. & to top that the hive did not accept the new queen so 2 queens were wasted.

[brooksbeefarm]

Rober, that's why i quit wearing Bow Ties.  Jack

[Sour Kraut]

Not giving enough room, soon enough

Been doing it over and over, for close to 55 years................

This year WILL be different.....just picked up 600 + bux worth of hive bodies and super frames and foundation

[Sour Kraut]

OK, the Buick story reminded me

ALWAYS check that the two hive bodies are stapled together PROPERLY

Lifted one, carrying it to the old Dodge B-350 Bee-Mobile, when the bottom half dropped off

And of course I was in mid-step so I kicked the bottom just as it landed.

Slammed the top half back on, but the screen in the entrance had fallen out, and for 24 hours I resembled the Michelin Man.

This happened at about 9 pm and of course I had to do a double shift at Capitol-EMI thru 4 pm the next day....

[Green bee]

OK, the Buick story reminded me

ALWAYS check that the two hive bodies are stapled together PROPERLY

Lifted one, carrying it to the old Dodge B-350 Bee-Mobile, when the bottom half dropped off

And of course I was in mid-step so I kicked the bottom just as it landed.

Slammed the top half back on, but the screen in the entrance had fallen out, and for 24 hours I resembled the Michelin Man.

This happened at about 9 pm and of course I had to do a double shift at Capitol-EMI thru 4 pm the next day....

    This is one mistake I will definitely try to avoid...

[riverbee]

greenbee~
"This is definitely a classic Riverbee,  thanks for sharing it. I had a good mental picture of what was going on as I read your story. You could have offered over the bees for evidence and placed them in his car  did you end up getting a ticket?"

i wasn't driving, i was a passenger......but yes the driver received a tag for 4 to 5 violations.......whatever made the wisconsin state trooper annoyed enough to tag my friend for he did.  violations i remember were for careless driving, something about transportation of agricultural livestock and another i think had something to do with unsafe driving...........lol............

wanderingman~
"Sounds to me like she got enough tickets to reupholster the car."

wm, if you ask me i would have bought a new car. no reupholstering in this buick would have helped. (too many bad smells).

btw everyone, my friend the driver that i volunteered to help out is a public defender and a criminal defense attorney................

i have made plenty of booboos during my years of beekeeping..........and still do, and recently.......
just a few from the past..........

* do not put light sugar syrup in a sprayer to spray mean ornery cranky bees with if the sprayer is clogged and you inadvertently (to check the sprayer nozzle) spray yourself in the face with your veil on..............you will not be able to see a thing.....

* bears and bees;
if you live in an area where you have bears......get a fence up.  if you don't, the bears will find your hives.  fence first, bees second.
girl scouts and boy scouts be prepared...........
when the bear does find your hive/s do not forget your veil.  on the second trip do not forget your smoker.
either way, first trip or second trip trying to salvage  bees after a bear has visited forgetting your veil or forgetting the smoker is really not very smart......or in haste forgetting/neglecting to bring both............or wearing full gear after the first attack.........
to the bees you look like a bear irregardless of what you are wearing, and irregardless of the lack of veil, smoker, or full suit.

* do not go commando under a full bee suit and veil in hot humid weather if  unforeseen circumstances happen (stings/abnormal reaction) and includes a visit to your local hospital emergency room and a subsequent overnight stay.........
and if you visit the emergency room, don't park right by the emergency door in a hurry on the sidewalk, you will get a ticket and be towed....... 

* always check the underneath side of the inner cover for the queen, especially in the spring........and do not set it aside or in the grass or drop it if she is on there or not so good........ whack it on the hive with the underneath side of the lid facing up........she will most likely fly off and you will be crawling around looking for her....... ( i did not do this but my husband did, i saw him crawling around on the ground on his knees frantically looking for a queen).

*if your mentor is in a very bad snarly mood to help you check your bees and the bees are pissy or weren't in the first place and start getting pissy because of your mentor's actions/attitude....stand WAY back even if he/she is yelling at you...........

[LazyBkpr]

Worst mistake...
   Brushing a HUGE swarm of bees off from under a limb into a bucket....  Only when I bushed them off it revealed the hole that was the entrance to their hive....   I was pulling stingers out of my body for days...  Woke up about 3 am and threw up, felt fine after that.

  Second worst mistake?
   Allowing wifey to watch me while working a hive... while wearing shorts....
  To this day she can do a relatively accurate replay of me jumping into the air and screaming like a girl....  Usually she laughs quite hard after the accurate replay...

[Lburou]

...To this day she can do a relatively accurate replay of me jumping into the air and screaming like a girl....  Usually she laughs quite hard after the accurate replay...

   
To keep me humble has been my wife's job for the past 50 years (anniversary June 23).