Budding Cottage

It is now entering into summer 2014 and I realise that it is almost 3 years since I last blogged about the bees. Where did the time go?

Certainly the bees have keep on going, and I will try to back track to fill in some of the gaps.  Looking back, the hives have increased and decreased; swarms have come and gone.  I didn’t lose any bees to a winter in 2011, 2012 and 2013 – though I fed them well and mainly overwintered on a brood and a half for each hive.  I did lose bees during 2012 to casts which were not strong enough to last and dwindled away; and repeated swarms particularly at Apiary 2 – but gradually the temperament of these bees improved.  At one point in 2012 I reached something like 12 small hives (cobbled together in a Heath-Robinson fashion) after a series of casts from the hives, but these did not build into strong colonies and were merged or lost.

I merged some bees at my home apiary; and did a shook swarm the once, which didn’t end well.  However, the bees seem to have survived my ministrations and carried on.  We have not taken huge amounts of honey; but I have experimented with making some mead.  The main thing is that so far the bees have continued relatively well.

Bee allergy
One of the main things that happened over the last couple of years; was that I got a double sting in the scalp in Autumn 2012 when the bees were defensive and the winter bees were probably carrying a good venom loading – which led to a full body reaction and a trip to casualty. Lucky for me, the lovely consultant who discharged me 24 hours later runs a respiratory clinic and could do desensitisation for me. So, I began a course of desensitisation treatment in January 2013, building up to 100mg of venom by April and then having this shot monthly. Since then I have been stung on the wrist twice (May 2014) with localised swelling; but I always carry an epi pen, antihistamines and steroids when working with the bees. I am hoping that one day the reaction will become much smaller. At least these days a year or so on, the swelling subsides within around 48 hours.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2014 at 8:04 pm and is filed under Bee allergy, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.