Chatterbox: Down to Earth

My family just got bee hives.  Does anyone else own bees?  I guess I’m not afraid; they’re not the stinging type anyway.  It’ll be nice to have fresh honey!  And beeswax to make candles, lip balm, soap, etc.  We put the two hives in the corner of our backyard.  Some 10,000 bee’s PER hive.  It was such a random thing to get these and even worse, my two closest friends are terrified of bees! Oh, great.  Well, seriously, they typically don’t sting- so I find it slightly annoying that my friends are making such a big deal out of it.  But, yeah, anyone else have bees? :)

 

Robyn~D~

submitted by R~D~, age ALMOST15!
(April 26, 2011 - 4:30 pm)

back to the Down to Earth

No, we don't. We do have grape vines and peach, nectarine, pear, cherry, and apple trees, though!

submitted by Princess P.
(April 26, 2011 - 8:09 pm)

TOP!!

submitted by TOP
(April 27, 2011 - 10:56 pm)

I don't but they are cool! My dad had them when he was little. I heard a story of a guy who was so immune to the bees that he'd reach in for the queen with his BARE HANDS! I think he's crazy! :) You should tell your friends that there's no need to be scared because bees only sting if they truly feel endangered. They die after so they don't really like to sting... How do you get bees that don't sting??

submitted by Elizabeth M, age 11, Germany
(April 28, 2011 - 1:48 am)

I don't keep bees, but I've always wanted to! That sounds excellent!

submitted by Ima
(April 28, 2011 - 10:06 am)

Ooh!!!!!  ~jumps up and down and waves hands in the air~  Me!  Me!  Me!  This will be year two!!  And you're more likely to get struck by lightning than get stung by a honeybee that doesn't feel offended.  The only time I've gotten stung so far is when I put my thumb on a bee by accident (which is a duh) and I kneeled on a dead bee and it got stuck in my knee. xD  We don't even wear our suits (except veils since we don't want them in our ears etc.) when we're out there.  Or smoke them.

submitted by Charlotte, age 13, Next to my bed
(April 28, 2011 - 10:57 am)

My family had two bee hives a couple years ago, but they died.  One didn't have a queen, and one had an infestation of some kind of beetle.  :(  But I loveth bees, and if my family catches another swarm, then I hope that nothing horrible like the other two happened.  My friends have bees, and they get honey from there, though not a lot.  They keep some for themselves, and then give some to friends as gifts.  :)  I have gotten wax from my bee hives, but my family didn't do anything with it, for some reason...  I'm surprised we didn't make balm...

submitted by Meadow, age 13, Deep In The Fol
(April 28, 2011 - 11:59 am)

@Charlotte: Awesome!  I'm not the only one. :)  My dad wears one of those masks, but nothing else.  We only have one mask, so he's the only one who opens the hive, etc.  We don't have a smoker either.  We heard that just ticks them off more than calms them down. My brother actually got stung, but that's because it landed on his eye and he grabbed at it and it stung is eyelid.  It was swollen for a couple days. :P  But, you're right- honeybees don't care about humans unless you sit on them (or kneel on them XD) or step on them or grab at them or stuff like that.  You just have to learn to be calm and have fluent motions when around the hive or when the bees are on you, which is what I'm teaching my friend...  NO running around screaming like you're a five year old. :) 

@Meadow: Oh, that stinks!  Did the queen just die or did they not come with a queen?

submitted by R~D~, age 14
(April 28, 2011 - 6:20 pm)

I do not own bees and don't really want to since bees have scared me ever since I was little, and they still do, though I haven't been stung by one before (at least, I can't remember being stung).

submitted by Olive
(April 28, 2011 - 6:11 pm)

We don't keep bees, but we have a wood duck house high in a tree in our backyard and we have had a hive in there for 2 or 3 years. In the front yard we had a hive in an owl box for about a year and then they deserted it. We built another owl bos because before the bees were in it we had screech owls for about 3 or 4 years. It does kind of annoy me when people are so afraid of bees (No offense to anyone here) because I have never been stung by a bee or wasp and as I said we have bees buzzing around our yard all the time and bumblebees and a lot of wasps. They have never bothered me. They have even landed on me and I have moved my hand to get them off and they still haven't stung me.

submitted by Elizabeth D., age 14, Texas
(April 28, 2011 - 11:51 pm)