@sighmanjestah "Hey, That Reminds Me Of A Story"

This story brought to you by way of a post by @marymg2014;
https://steemit.com/gardening/@marymg2014/no-bees-no-food

If you check her post, you'll more than likely see what prompted the short circuit in my brain, that spit out the memory that was buzzing around in my brain. The brain with the bazillion ideas building up Steem. So here is the story swarming out and hopefully giving up a little room for some new memories.

Save The Bees or The Tales Of An Amateur Bee-Keeper #1

No Bees No Food

You can thank a honey bee for ⅓rd of your diet.
-Unknown

Ok, so how does someone who would freak out and run around screaming if a bee started buzzing around anywhere within a foot of them get involved with even thinking about keeping bees?

It would be the headline just above No Bees No Food

As I live in a rural farming area, the stories about bee colonies collapsing just struck a chord with me. I thought, "someone should do something about that." So after beeing exposed to all things bees by some close friends who started their own hive, I took the plunge and enrolled in a local community college "Bee-Keeping 101" course. The same course my friends had taken last year.
The friends told me,"You better sign up early, they only have so many spots and they fill up quick."

So, the course was 4 or 6 sessions of 4hrs on consecutive Saturdays, as well as a couple of hands on classes towards the end of the course. I was hooked after the first 30 minutes, based on the passion and knowledge of our instructor, Pat Ennis, (Bee-Keeper extraordinaire). He was not a professional teacher, but he knew what he was talking about and his love of bees just oozed out of him, like honey coming out of the sides of Winnie-the Pooh's paw-stuffed mouth, as he has his other paw reaching in the bee-hive for more.

Paws On Bees

Ok, so it starts to get serious towards the end of the course. All of the students purchased their protective suits, head coverings and gloves. The hands on practical experience was carried out at Pat's small 4 acre farmhouse, that was surrounded by fallow farmland. He had several hives and he was allowing us to "help" keep his bees.

Well the one thing we were learning about was installing the bees in a new hive. This entailed taking a 3-lb package of bees, (that's what I'm holding in the photo above) which contains 12,000 to 13,000 bees, as well as a queen (in a little cage) and there in the middle of that cage is a can that has a few holes in it that's filled with heavy sugar water syrup. Something to keep the bees fed while they are waiting to be installed.

Our class size was about 25 and there were about 15 students for the hands on experience. Pat demonstrated the procedure and we were expected to follow suit and install a package of bees on our own. Ok, Pat explains what he is going to do. First, I spray the bees in the cage with a generous amount of sugar water, this will calm the bees while I take the package of bees and thump it on the ground to knock the bees away from the top of the package. (Ok, about this time I am thinking, "say what, all I can think of is the phrase stirring up a hornet's nest. Pay attention reader, these are bees not hornets. I knew that as well, but I still couldn't get the thought out of my head of a young kid using a baseball bat on a hornets nest.) So as the bees are stunned, covered with sugar water and laying on the bottom of the package, you have to grab the can with the sugar water, lift it off and grab the queen cage, you will be putting her aside for a moment. Next, we take the package and flip it over (there's a hole in the top where the can used to be) and shake the bees out, into the hive brood box, which has had about 1/2 of the bee frames removed. Then take the queen, still in her cage and put her between a couple of the hive frames and poor a few of the remaining bees on top, then your done.Just like that. Total time, for that whole procedure? Probably about a minute, definitely under 2.

Ok, who wants to do the next one?

Trust In The Instructor

So Pat is very comfortable around bees. I watched him do that whole installation, without a suit, or even without his head covering. He just exudes confidence.

So I'm thinking, Let's see, spray bees, thump bees, remove sugar water can, get queen bee cage, set aside queen, pour bees into hive, place queen in cage between a couple brood frames, pour the last of the bees on the queen cage, all while silently saying under your breath, Don't Panic! Hmm.. I can do this.

Hey Pat, I'll do the next one.

Ok Rick, do you want to suit up? It's up to you, I know you can do it.

Well, surprisingly for me, I said, No, you have just instilled confidence in me, so if you don't mind watching me running and screaming like a little girl into the field, next to hive, if things go wrong. I'll skip the suit, GULP, I THINK I'VE GOT THIS. I had my previously mentioned friends there and I handed over my video camera and gave instructions to record the whole thing. Who knows, this might end up as an America's Funniest Home Video contest winner.

Spray the bees, (heh, this isn't so bad), thump the bees, (ok, piece of cake), Pat removes the sugar can so that I can extract the queen cage, and a bee, obviously not stunned by my inexperienced thumping, zeroed in on Pat's philtral groove, (that little area just under the nose on the upper lip area), and calmly mumbles just loud enough for me to hear, "Oh, that's gonna hurt", Ok, don't panic, get the queen cage, set it aside, pour some bees into the hive, (ok, maybe I should have put my bee veil on), a bee starts buzzing around my hair, ok maybe a couple of 3 or 4 bees, one of them is really making a lot of noise, stuck in my hair.
(WHAT WAS I THINKING? WHY DID'NT I WEAR THE VEIL?)
Queen installed, pour out the remaining bees, (WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH THIS BEE IN MY HAIR? SHE'S GETTING AWFUL CLOSE TO MY EAR.) TAKE A BREATH. TAKE A DEEP BREATH. Phew, put the lid of the hive on. One of the other students, sort of shews away that pesky bee. It's over. I've installed my first batch of bees in Pat's hive.

I'll finish here, although I do have, somewhere, a video of Pat getting stung on the lip. I'll try to hunt it up and post it later.

Trust In God

Psalms 18:2 (NKJV)
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

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Sources
Unknown quote http://www.carolinabees.com/info/quotes
Photos Mine
Drawing My Wife

Soli Deo gloria
SDG
Special thanks to @surgo for his inspirational post
https://steemit.com/writing/@surgo/writer-s-block-doesn-t-exist