This time it’s a butterfly

We newbees were warned from the first day of class about the inevitability of being stung. “It goes with the territory” the old sages told us. And because we were like teenagers getting behind the wheel of a car with our drivers ed teacher, we didn’t believe them. Our confident faces said, “not us,” while the smirks from the instructors said, “just you wait Henry Higgins.” Should we find ourselves stung, we were schooled to remove the stinger immediately and rub the area with grass or propolis. The idea here being that one sting could easily be followed by more if the scent grew too strong.

Bees can be classified as being defensive by nature as opposed to aggressive. I concur with this idea. Honeybees have one guiding  purpose; to forage for food, feed the colony and nurture the hive. (Except for drones and I’m sure I’ve made my point about them by now.) Honeybees become aggressive when they feel threatened. If this instinct is triggered, they become warriors and will protect their home and queen with their lives. One sting and the honeybee dies.  Understanding my passive temperament, I felt that the ONLY way I would ever get stung, was if I became the 2 C’s…cocky and careless.

I’m not so sure I became cocky, however in retrospect, I can see that in year one as a new Bee Guardian, I was careless. Not once, but twice! I’m not good with the smoker. The theory behind a billowing smoker is that it has a calming effect on the bees so that when you enter a hive to do maintenance work, they scurry to the bottom instead of swarming all around your head. Now I had no trouble lighting the damn thing, but after about ten minutes, I could count on it self-extinguishing. And because of my slow, methodical work ethic (translation:incompetence), I was always elbow deep in bees when it expired. My gentle diligent workers however, paid me no-never-mind. We seemed to have an intuitive understanding. “Leave the wench alone and she’ll eventually leave us alone too.”

This one particularly hot day, I was decked out in full gear except for the flip-flops on my feet. The hive search had gone peacefully even with the dead smoker. All chores were finished when I squatted in front of the entrance hole to say goodbye. I felt a prick on my big toe and peering down, noted that I must have accidentally stepped on a wandering bee. In retaliation, she stung me. The pain was negligible, so other than cursing myself for my stupidity, and feeling guilty over being a murderer, I carried on. Whats’s all the hoop-la about being stung I wondered. Itchy toe..big deal.

The second sting was an entirely different matter. On this occasion, I was observing the hive activity through the looking glass when I noticed a web hanging from the screened bottom board. Without thinking, I placed my hand underneath to investigate. Ouch:stabbed. Yanking my hand back, I could see the little black stinger residing on the ring finger of my left hand. Once again, there was nothing but a tingling. That is, until the next day. Two rows of bubbling blisters materialized overnight, one along the interior of my finger, the other like a row of roses around my emerald ring. As the day progressed, the entire finger grew very hot, itchy and I’m sure do to the band restriction, enlarged. The more it swelled, the tighter the band became. Circulation was so impaired that my finger (which now resembled a bratwurst), was turning purple. Engaging the services of a medical friend, we attempted to compress the engorged area with a tightly wound circle of thread in an effort to navigate the ring over the puffed-up knuckle. Not only did this not work, but the squeezing produced unbearable pain. “You have 24 hours,” he told me. “If the inflammation has not subsided, you have to go to the ER and get that ring cut off.”

Now here was the other problem. That piece of jewelry had incredible sentimental value. It had been my mother’s and was passed down to me upon her death. So warning or no warning, I was not about to ruin that ring. For several hours I kept my hand submerged in ice water. This numbed the pain exquisitely so I withdrew my blue hand and yanked rudely at the ring. It barely budged but caused searing pain all the way to my elbow. I traded the ice water for ice cubes, a dishtowel and a zip lock bag. I slept that night with my hand elevated on four fluffy pillows.

Next morning, running out of time, seeing no noticeable shrinkage and with absolutely no feeling in my fingers, I was determined to rip the ring off. Gritting my teeth, I pulled and twisted. With eyes squeezed shut and tears leaking down my cheeks I kept tugging and wiggling until the ring agonizingly inched its way up, cleared the hump and went sailing across the room from the force I had been applying. The pitiful finger, though visually pulsating and oozing broken blisters, began pinking up immediately. Three days later, though scarred, my digit returned to its normal size and shape.

So what lessons were learned from this non classroom experience? Well… several. One, “Don’t wear flip flops while working in the hive”… Two, “Don’t stick your bare hand under the bottom board without looking first.” And Three… if you’re dumb enough to do either one of those things, “Don’t wear rings on your fingers… or bells on your toes!”