efmesch

Most beekeepers are familiar with this cave picture from Spain, showing someone collecting honey from bees, either from a tree or a cave.

Some estimates of its age push it back to about 15,000 years ago. But this is only a picture. In 2007, a group of archeologists, digging in Tel Rehov, in northern Israel's Bet Shean valley, about 30 km (20 miles) south of the Sea of Galilee, uncovered the world's oldest known apiary. Dated to about 3,000 years ago, about ...

This past Thursday I was back at my hives-- I wasn't gloveless this time but used thin latex rubber "surgical gloves", not for sting protection but to avoid the propolis marks that are so hard to remove.

Then, as I was working on one of the hives, came the sting---not to the hands but from a bee that had crawled up the leg of my jeans. It got to my knee before it decided to sting me. I felt it and knew that I had no hopes of removing the stinger. My rubbing of the leg probably ...

My fears grew considerably two weeks ago, when I was working my hives,cleaning them out and organizing the frames in preparation for the comingseason.

Last year I took to working my hives without gloves. I find it mucheasier to handle the frames without the bulk of the leather making my movementsclumsy.

In a careless moment I squashed a bee between the fourth and fifthfingers of my left hand. I got one sting that was completely normal. A suddenbit of burning that caught ...

A very important thread that has been running for quite a while is that of "riverbee" called Riverbee"s crossroad". This thread has been following riverbee's experiences as a long term, dedicated, "addicted" beekeeper who suddenly and unexpectedly developed an anaphylactic allergic reaction to bee stings.

Several members of my immediate family (my brother and three of my children), developed anaphylactic reactions to stings and have undergone a series of ...

It was a day I had been looking forward to for a few weeks. A neighborhood beekeeper, Yehudah, had agreed to take me to his hives so I could observe him as he opened and examined them. It was to be my first real beekeeping experience. Till then I had read everything about bees that my hands could touch. Now it was to be the real thing! I was really going to learn to be a beekeeper.

Before going to the hives, I snatched a quick bite for lunch, several slices of leftover pastrami. My ...