Non-interventionalist beekeeping?

[steve_e]

Sting reactions over time

Hi -
How do sting reactions go over time (seasonally)?

In my fourth year I got stung three times last weekend - the first time since last summer.

On my wrist I found a slow swelling that took three days to subside during which time I couldn't put on my watch due to its extent.

I also got stung on my face (despite wearing a suit and bizarrely not even feeling the sting - only realizing I'd been stung an hour or so later when I felt my upper lip swelling from inside my mouth). This became quite pronounced and lasted a day or two.

Are these quite normal 'first of the season' reactions and soon I won't really notice them again after the first pain (as in past years) or should I keep an eye out for the beginnings of a sensitivity?

 

[For want of a better word]

Hi -
How do sting reactions go over time (seasonally)?

In my fourth year I got stung three times last weekend - the first time since last summer.

On my wrist I found a slow swelling that took three days to subside during which time I couldn't put on my watch due to its extent.

I also got stung on my face (despite wearing a suit and bizarrely not even feeling the sting - only realizing I'd been stung an hour or so later when I felt my upper lip swelling from inside my mouth). This became quite pronounced and lasted a day or two.

Are these quite normal 'first of the season' reactions and soon I won't really notice them again after the first pain (as in past years) or should I keep an eye out for the beginnings of a sensitivity?

I am definitely not for non intervention in a bee sting case

Take "Loretedine???" not Piriton... that stuff can alter your social behaviour!

 

[pargyle]

Any yacht is "modest" compared to the one(s) owned by Roman Abramovitch http://tinyurl.com/mgzlj8o.

Only TWO helipads .... wouldn't give it houseroom.

We were called to his pad near Rogate a few years ago ...he'd had a gym complex built on the side of it (cost a fortune ... 22ct gold taps and tiles in the bathroom). But, his wife didn't like the colour of the tiles on the roof which she noticed when she flew in by helicopter ... the contractor who built it wondered if we had a treatment that would change the colour to something acceptable to Mrs A ... in the end, they ripped them all off and put new ones on !

Another world ....

 

[Chris Luck]

Nice to see the topic disappearing down the plug hole.

Chris

 

[madasafish]

Hi -
How do sting reactions go over time (seasonally)?

In my fourth year I got stung three times last weekend - the first time since last summer.

On my wrist I found a slow swelling that took three days to subside during which time I couldn't put on my watch due to its extent.

I also got stung on my face (despite wearing a suit and bizarrely not even feeling the sting - only realizing I'd been stung an hour or so later when I felt my upper lip swelling from inside my mouth). This became quite pronounced and lasted a day or two.

Are these quite normal 'first of the season' reactions and soon I won't really notice them again after the first pain (as in past years) or should I keep an eye out for the beginnings of a sensitivity?

After 3 years and some 150 stings I developed immunity of some sort late last year.

Another 20 stings this year and it's topped up again..

 

[pargyle]

Nice to see the topic disappearing down the plug hole.

Chris

If you don't like someone's posts then there's an easy answer Chris ... just press the ignore posts button ... I don't mind.

 

[Chris Luck]

If you don't like someone's posts then there's an easy answer Chris ... just press the ignore posts button ... I don't mind.

Or I can comment which I did.

I do understand it's a difficult topic for some people, (not yourself of course), to take seriously.

Chris

 

[pargyle]

Or I can comment which I did.

I do understand it's a difficult topic for some people, (not yourself of course), to take seriously.

Chris

It's been an interesting thread so far and has not degenerated into what I thought it may have ... and indeed others before it have. Whilst there is some disagreement between the two extremes, I get the feeling that there is an increasing majority of beekeepers who are now being quite selective and cautious about how much they dive about in the hive and how much and with what they treat their bees - and I think that's good for everyone.

I think the onset of Varroa must have had a dramatic affect and led, very much, to the regime of interference we see in some beeks - and the number of hives now being kept in urban locations obviously encourages the need for AS procedures.

I know my Dad in the 1960's barely went into the hives except to put supers on ... and even then didn't do much in the brood area, the bees were on his allotment in a mining town in South Yorks and I know he had occasional swarms but that didn't seem to phase him, it's interesting to note that there are others who were like that. In addition, there was a generation around then in which many had been brought up with 'country ways'. My grandfather was born on a farm in 1886 and worked with horses all his life (the last half of it down the coal mines tending pit ponies) and a swarm of bees was something viewed as normal and natural. Less fear than you get in the middle of a modern housing estate ....

So perhaps we should be educating our neighbours that a swarm is not the end of life as we know it and worry less about swarming ? Not sure it's always going to be possible but perhaps if bees want to swarm we should ensure that we have the ability and hives to help them achieve what they want, they usually know best it seems. Not anti-swarm but controlled swarm ?

 

[Jim Newmark]

I really should be working but got distracted reading all this. Thanks, looks like I was not totally off line then. Certainly, for me, three years ago the idea of catching a swarm had the same likelihood of becoming an astronaut but now I almost feel like advertising my services. I like the idea of getting Storch, At the hive entrance [ame]http://www.amazon.com/At-Hive-Entrance-H-Storch/dp/B0042TZFAK[/ame] but perhaps not at that price. I will look out for the download

 

[Luminos]

I really should be working but got distracted reading all this. Thanks, looks like I was not totally off line then. Certainly, for me, three years ago the idea of catching a swarm had the same likelihood of becoming an astronaut but now I almost feel like advertising my services. I like the idea of getting Storch, At the hive entrance http://www.amazon.com/At-Hive-Entrance-H-Storch/dp/B0042TZFAK but perhaps not at that price. I will look out for the download

I got mine from Northern Bee books - not free, but a lot cheaper than Amaz0n

 

[pargyle]

I really should be working but got distracted reading all this. Thanks, looks like I was not totally off line then. Certainly, for me, three years ago the idea of catching a swarm had the same likelihood of becoming an astronaut but now I almost feel like advertising my services. I like the idea of getting Storch, At the hive entrance http://www.amazon.com/At-Hive-Entrance-H-Storch/dp/B0042TZFAK but perhaps not at that price. I will look out for the download

Free download:

http://www.************/library/gen...eping_books_articles/At the Hive Entrance.pdf

Ahhh ... that will be on the other well known 'natural' beekeeping site then:

www.b***bees.com/library/general_beekeeping/beekeeping_books_articles/At%20the%20Hive%20Entrance.pdf[/url

 

[Chris Luck]

It's been an interesting thread so far and has not degenerated into what I thought it may have ... and indeed others before it have. Whilst there is some disagreement between the two extremes, I get the feeling that there is an increasing majority of beekeepers who are now being quite selective and cautious about how much they dive about in the hive and how much and with what they treat their bees - and I think that's good for everyone.

I think the onset of Varroa must have had a dramatic affect and led, very much, to the regime of interference we see in some beeks - and the number of hives now being kept in urban locations obviously encourages the need for AS procedures.

I know my Dad in the 1960's barely went into the hives except to put supers on ... and even then didn't do much in the brood area, the bees were on his allotment in a mining town in South Yorks and I know he had occasional swarms but that didn't seem to phase him, it's interesting to note that there are others who were like that. In addition, there was a generation around then in which many had been brought up with 'country ways'. My grandfather was born on a farm in 1886 and worked with horses all his life (the last half of it down the coal mines tending pit ponies) and a swarm of bees was something viewed as normal and natural. Less fear than you get in the middle of a modern housing estate ....

So perhaps we should be educating our neighbours that a swarm is not the end of life as we know it and worry less about swarming ? Not sure it's always going to be possible but perhaps if bees want to swarm we should ensure that we have the ability and hives to help them achieve what they want, they usually know best it seems. Not anti-swarm but controlled swarm ?

I agree with that and if I may say so very well put.

In my experience two things have happened, three if you want to include varroa but that's another contentious issue.

1. People in general have become increasingly distanced from the natural world and I've lost track of how many times here I've had Brits say "I love nature but not in my garden" or "I know it's a shame about swallows being in trouble but they poo on my car so I can't have them here" and so it goes on;

2; There are a large number of Bee keepers that don't see any point in keeping bees if they don't or can't find reasons to play with them and will find all manner of excuses to do so.

Anyway, I have to go and LOOK at my bees now and this evening I have to go and collect a colony from a holiday home window which as far as I'm concerned is the price people pay for having holiday homes, (€50 including 80 km round trip).

Chris

 

[pargyle]

I agree with that and if I may say so very well put.

In my experience two things have happened, three if you want to include varroa but that's another contentious issue.

1. People in general have become increasingly distanced from the natural world and I've lost track of how many times here I've had Brits say "I love nature but not in my garden" or "I know it's a shame about swallows being in trouble but they poo on my car so I can't have them here" and so it goes on;

2; There are a large number of Bee keepers that don't see any point in keeping bees if they don't or can't find reasons to play with them and will find all manner of excuses to do so.

Anyway, I have to go and LOOK at my bees now and this evening I have to go and collect a colony from a holiday home window which as far as I'm concerned is the price people pay for having holiday homes, (€50 including 80 km round trip).

Chris

Yep .. Storch has it right ... I had read Storch (the free download !) and I think LOOKING at them is much more sense than MESSING with them !! You are dead right about us losing touch with nature ... I would think less so in France than over here in the UK. Sadly, keeping in touch with nature often means watching Springwatch and repeats of David Attenborough's wondeful series ... I hope my children and grandchildren stay a little nearer the earth ! They will be if I have my way anyway.

 

[davnig]

It's been an interesting thread so far and has not degenerated into what I thought it may have ... and indeed others before it have.

Probably because the usual culprits who cause most of the strife on here haven't appeared in this thread and all the better for their omission it is too

 

[Dishmop]

1/ If you don't "intervene" the colony will die because of varroa.

Why is it then that a queen can carry on laying for several years?

 

[pargyle]

Why is it then that a queen can carry on laying for several years?

'Cos that's what the books say ? There seems to be a lot of beeks that think any Varroa infestation is terminal .... of concern, of course, terminal .. not necessarily.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Why is it then that a queen can carry on laying for several years?

Don't get your point - There is no connection between a queens laying life and varroa.
Varroa will kill a colony by making it weaker and suceptible to disease (such as DWV) thus some kind of positive action must be taken (cue the cake decorator's club ) just because a queen may have a laying life of up to five years) doesn't make the colony indestructible AND VARROA JUST A MINOR NUISANCE.

 

[Dishmop]

but if a colony hasnt been treated for varroa and the queen continues to lay for ? years, then the colony didnt die out did it.

 

[Skyhook]

but if a colony hasnt been treated for varroa and the queen continues to lay for ? years, then the colony didnt die out did it.

I still don't get the connection. If a colony survives for 10 years untreated then it does, if it doesn't it doesn't. Whether it has 2 or 10 queens in that time is a different conversation on a different subject.

.

 

[Dishmop]

the connection is "if you dont treat for varroa they will die out" and other such similar quotes... and in truth, those who do lose colonies dont have the faintest idea why...