Bees

Last weekend Aya and I went with her parents to local honey/bee farm to do some bee keeping. This place offered to show people the colonies and let them try honey, we were pretty sure it was meant for kids, but sounded so fun. So off we went.
When we arrived we had to don some funky net hats to make sure that we didn’t get stung on the face, but our hands were left exposed. As the woman guiding us got her smoker going she was telling us about the bees and that we shouldn’t stand in front of the openings of the hives because the bees would feel threatened. There were maybe a dozen boxes each containing its own colony with its own queen. She led us into the middle of the hives, or apiary, and I must admit that I was pretty nervous. There were bees landing all over me and the noise a bit unnerving. Plus, I thought, “Can bees smell fear? Didn’t I hear that once? Oh no, … don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, stay calm.” That isn’t exactly true. Bees can smell pheromones, but they can’t smell “fear”.
Anyways, as we stood there our guide pulled out a board from the hive and showed us some honey comb, pointed out the queen, then punctured a hole in the honey comb exposing some fresh honey and told us to put our fingers in to taste some. I was the last to put my finger in and I must admit it was awfully hard not to poke a bee as I was trying to get some honey, but it was really good. Our guide explained to us about workers and drones and told us that essentially males are used just for breeding and once their purpose has been served they get kicked out of the hive where they starve to death. In some ways I feel bad for them, but not really. There lives may be shorter than other bees, but all they do is eat and breed. Sorry guy, I don’t feel bad for you. So I was thinking about whether or not I would actually want to be a male honey bee when Aya got stung. The strap from her camera and squeezed a bee between it and her hand and it panicked and stung her. Of course then our guide got to tell us about how when a bee stings and they lose their stinger they also lose their lives.
Other than that though we had a good experience and after went into the honey shop to taste some different kinds of honey like mikan, caramel, shiroka, soba, etc. They were all pretty interesting. We also read about some of the other uses of honey such as for medicine, shampoo, and other things. So that is the buzz on my honey bee experience.