In Which the Gloves Come Off
Wednesday, May 31st, Day 27 - This group continues to be enjoyable, attentive, asking engaging questions, as they were yesterday, but now also developing a sense of commraderie and starting to joke around a bit (in a good way).
Covered topbar hives and the beginning of doing hive inspections during lecture time.
I haven't actually had running water for a week, since I got to this hotel. I hadn't complained because well you just kind of accept these things in Africa. But only today did I realize everyone else had water. And when it got back to the hotel owner he came and once again chastised me like a small child, this time for not having said anything earlier ("and now what you're going to go telling people we don't have water in this hotel but how can I fix it if you don't tell me..."). His intention to provide a positive guest experience through fixing such problems is laudable but the way he berates one when they come to him with a complaint is a bit impactful of the guest experience itself.
Anyway I was moved to another room that does in fact have running water!
We went to a bee site just outside of town for our field visit today. This was a nice location under some (mango?) trees, which, particularly ideal, didn't have any nearby foot traffic or people working or anything. There were two occupied and two unoccupied hives here.
We saw the queen in one of the hives, which was particulary exciting for everyone since we fairly rarely actually find her. Also both hives were nice enough that I was able to take off my gloves. Which also meant I was able to grab the queen, which I wouldn't have been dextrous enough to do while wearing gloves.
And on that note one thing Williams had admonished the class while we were still in the lecture hall and repeated here in the field was that he doesn't want anyone else taking their gloves off "Kris is an expert with many years of experience and just because he can do it doesn't mean you should." I am a bit annoyed with this actually because I love it when the trainees are comfortable enough to take their gloves off. Unless someone is already deathly allergic to bees (in which case they shouldn't be here!), there is essentially no way things could turn south fast and badly enough to cause more harm than a fair bit of discomfort before they could get the gloves back on if need be. But Williams having confidently and authoritatively announced his don't-take-your-gloves-off policy to everyone I didn't want to contradict him.
But he wasn't with us with the second group and I told them I didn't really care if they wanted to take their glove off, and was actually really pleased to see someone not only do so but subsequently receive several stings on the hand without howling about it or even really reacting. That quite frankly is the attitude/demeanor that makes a beekeeper.
At the beginning of today I had put on just a four-picture powerpoint to accompany my comments on yesterday's field visit. Walking back to the cars after today's field visit, when I turned around to take a picture of them they (the last group to go to the hives with me) got even more excited than the usual for a picture, I think because they anticipated I'd be using it for tomorrow's recap -- which I will because this picture (above) turned out great (:
A grim thing today: passing through the city center, by one of the intersections the first thing I noticed was the throngs of pedestrains all around were staring at something in horror. Looking there I saw, sprawled on the road unmoving, a young man. I assume he had been riding a motorcycle though I didn't see in the brief time we went past. There were giblets of meat lying around him which at first I took to be something gruesome but it was literally only cut meat, either the load he had been carrying or maybe in the crash he knocked someone's load off their head. I didn't see any blood but he was lying at an awkward angle and not moving.
We came back past a minute or two later (I think we were going to turn right which would have been right across where he was so our driver panicked and turned left and then we couldn't make a u-turn for awhile) and he was gone so presumably he'd been picked up and rushed to the hospital. He looked still-as-death to me but he could have just been temporarily stunned I suppose. And no he wasn't wearing a helmet, none of the motorcyclists here do.