Day 4 - Crash Course in Stirring Up Bees
Monday, May 8th, Day 4 - breakfast at the hotel at 8:30 - long French bread baguettes are delicious. Nescafe less so. And omelets are dependable throughout the world, though they could use some cheese here.
Then we went to the regional governor (prefect)'s office to greet him. This three story building had a nice sort of creative architecture in the arrangement of the central stairs. The prefect wasn't in. Someone mentioned he's a soldier, and well of course he is. We greeted the regional education ministers instead.
Then we went on to the ENATEF Forestry school where the training will take place. Somehow despite being just out of town you feel like you're deep in the forest when on the ENATEF grounds. The buildings are surrounded by big trees and the grounds have a serene air about them. Fitting for a forestry school i suppose.
Looking out at the ENATEF main square, 2014
ENATEF 2014, I forget if these people were eating here or if it's a class
As usual we spent an hour or more with introductory speeches and stuff, broke for lunch, then maybe another hour going around having the students tell what experience, if any, they have, and any questions or expectations they want met at this training. Only one had previous beekeeping experience, this youngish fellow in the back who looked to be in his mid twenties said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years.
And then finally i began my lectures. My very first slide is one that has pictures of the three castes of bee (queen, worker, drone), and also happens to have on it the bee pest the Small Hive Beetle (SHB). Then the one guy who'd said he'd been a beekeeper for 13 years raised his hand and said (through translator) the SHBs help the bees make honey.
I really have to flat out contradict someone who has just said they have experience at a thing and make them lose face but.. well this is awkward because um, no? Not at all? So i did my best to politely but firmly say they don't help.
He seemed to take that well enough and training proceeded well. They seem a good group. Attentive and interested. Then around 2 we finished so we could do some practical beekeeping.
The evolution of this plan was a bit funny, because initially it had been suggested to me that we only were going to look at hives, though i always want to actually open them up. And the photographer (the man from Alaska, recall) specifically wanted us to just play act around a vacant hive as that would be easier for him to get pictures, he said. It was apparent to me that he was a bit apprehensive about being around a live hive. So i encouraged everyone to get suited up and light the smoker, but/and also kept saying we should find a vacant hive, but this latter part seemed to get lost so we ended up getting all suited up and being led to an occupied hive just a short distance from the main buildings. The photographer didn't even want to suit up, being as he didn't intend to be near an occupied hive, but got talked into it.
Bailo suits up the photog
So finally we were standing next to the occupied hive and i tried one more time to ask if there was an unoccupied one but no one translated what i was saying. So i apologized to George (the photog) and said okay i guess this is what we're doing.
And then. More or less as soon as i touched the hive it crashed down from the evidently extremely precarious stand it had been on. Our many unsuited spectators ran shrieking away, as did at least half our people in suits (and the photog). There remained myself, two women, and a guy i think might have been an instructor at the school. While everyone else panicked these three kept calm and composed, which i was impressed and pleased with. Not only are stirred up bees psychologically disturbing but i know panic itself is contagious and it takes some mental fortitude to stand fast when everyone else is shrieking and running.
There was a fair bit of honey in the hive, which we harvested into a large bucket, and then we put it back on its stand as securely as we could.
Then we made our way back to the central square of the campus. Of course bees followed us, causing everyone up there to run when we arrived. Though in keeping with my principals of not bringing bees to a place where there's unprotected people while I'm suited up, i removed my suit before entering the square, and actually never got stung, despite that there were still bees about. The photog and some others were bailed up in the cars, and he had actually gotten four stings (in his hands, which had been exposed i guess, though I'd offered him my gloves). I was a bit worried this whole thing would be regarded as a fiasco but everyone i talked to seemed very pleased with the day. It helps maybe that we were able to harvest a significant amount of honey from that hive.
(The three troopers who stuck through it and the honey, unfortunately lots of bees in it because it was all a mess after the hive fell down)
Tomorrow I'll propose to maybe not open hives until the hour before sunset, a solution i commonly use so that stirred up bees aren't chasing people all day.
The photog and Ibro departed for another town to look at a different project there. I really thought they were gonna be here two days. Good thing we did some beekeeping to get the pictures today .. or maybe that's why they left ;-)