Shoka and the Bees

As Michael wrote yesterday, it was an interesting installation on Saturday. I decided to let Leah and our son Austin to work with the bees. Austin has been asking to get into his bee suit for a while and Saturday seemed the perfect opportunity. Frankly, I was unsure if the weather was going to cooperate. It has been raining here for the past eight days. Everything is wet including the hives. The ground is completely saturated, so at any break in the rain, you need to go out and do work. I was planting in the back yard, Leah and Austin were all suited up and Michael dropped the hive. It was not his fault. I was about twenty yards from the accident and ran to the door. Leah and Austin kept their cool. Michael ran inside and then the everything went to hell.

Shoka is a mixed breed Shepard/Beagle. When the nuc box fell, Shoka decided to investigate and was reward with a cloud of bees running after him. I tried to brush them off, but it was to late. He had been hit by at least ten bees. I rushed Shoka to the vet. Luckily there was no reaction, the vet told me that dogs do not go into anaphylactic shock. Rather they just swell up in the areas that they are stung. So give them a benadryl to control the itching. It was a real relief to get Shoka back home and find out that Leah, Austin and Michael had everything well in hand. The Russians were safely in the hive and rain started again.