Subject: Gosh, it's quiet in here....

From: [email-masked] (Adrian Graham DENT - Rodent)
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 11:34:25 GMT

Helo??? ooo?? ooo?? ooo??
I thought it might echo a little.....there does seem to have been a little 
fall of in the number of postings here lately...I suppose all you people on 
the upside of the planet are busy out harvesting tanker loads of honey...
I suppose it is really going to start getting quiet as everyone slows the 
pace down for their winter operations....I think we need more Aussies online 
so that we can have inane chat about obvious things all year 'round.
I guess, just as I am getting ready for my fourth harvest (well my fourth 
personal harvest...not counting the five or six I did with the guy who's 
hive management techniques seemes to be responsible for over 300 hives 
including my fathers 30, being wiped out by AFB) everybody else will be busy 
talking about storage of combs and various other winter operations....
I suppose the small hiatus in the activity that comes in your Autumn and my 
spring will give time for me to get to work on the australian sections of 
the FAQ instead of being totally useless trying to help everybody...:->
While there is a bit less in the way of hive activity going on, why don't we 
all swap best/worst experiences about beekeeping...

My worst experience was trying to work our first (at least we think it was 
first) AFB infected hive.  Actually they belonged to the guy I mentioned 
above, but all our hives where in with his....he had all the equipment, we 
just had hives..
Anyway, this hive gave me more stings in one day than I have had before or 
since....in fact probably even if I was to add up all the stings I'd ever 
had, this would have been more....
This hive was the worst pack of niggly little bitches I have ever seen (
although those of you that have seen Afric. bees have probably seen worse) 
and as soon as we started smoking the hive, all four of us were attacked....
once we had the hive opened, one person stayed there as each of the rest of 
us went to was our srings to get rid of the venom smell....our bucket of 
water was about ten metres away from this particular hive, and as soon as we 
took our gloves of to get at the sting, another two or three would seemingly 
materialise next to it...then after washing the arm or whatever and moving 
to put the glove back on, we would get stung again.  We closed that hive up, 
but for the next few hours, if we walked withing three or four meters of it, 
we got stung.
The reason I believe this hive to be responsible for promoting the spread of 
AFB through the apiary is because even the guys that had been doing bees for 
years were to wary of this hive to do all the work it needed for swarm and 
disease control, in fact it was rarely opened, and it wasn't even robbed for 
a year or two.  I was about 14 at the time, and blissfully unaware that such 
things as bee diseases existed....but the older guys should have known 
better...

Well...thats all for now....I just thought I'd share that...oh...my best 
experience.....every year when the first bit of honey flows out of the 
bottom of the extractor....(what else??  :->  )
Adrian.