Nector

One summer when Randal was 14 or 15 we took some bee hives out to Panaca where Les Prince lived. We left a few hives in his pasture where low growing Dutch clover provided nectar. The remaining hives we unloaded a mile or so north of town at the edge of a hay field, but back in a patch of big rabbit brush. At that time I used a strip of window screen to hold the bees in the box while moving them. After situating the boxes in their new location I proceeded to pull out the screens. Randal happened to be standing about 40 feet in front of a particularly vexatious hive when I yanked that strip out and a stream of mad bees poured forth.

The first thing they saw was Randal and went for him like a flock of sparrows. He took off making tracks fast and far apart, but to outrun a swarm of mad bees he'd have to develop about a hundred mile per hour ground speed which he was unable to do. After making a big circle he jumped into the pickup truck and slammed the door, but most of the bees went into the cab with him so they had him where he was easy to get at.. Then ensued one gosh awful fight where those Komokozi bees were subject to a madly whirling, flying jacket. After awhile all those buzzing, stinging beggars were dead and I walked over to the truck to see how my boy had faired. There were red spots all over him and by the time I was through counting the tally was well over 50 stings. But even though it hurts like fire, he didn't complain much.

Next year we took some bees out on a big burn area that had been replanted to grass and sweet yellow clover. After about 3 weeks on that good forage we took a 2-frame extractor, some long knives, a big water boiler, honey containers, and a camp outfit to that destination and made our camp by a little creek under a grove of quaking aspen trees. It was so pleasant here and a nice place to camp. We are down creek about a half mile to the west of the hives. Some of them have put in a lot of honey so we begin to take it away. At camp we set up the pot over a fire to heat water that warms our decapping knives. Randal turns the extractor handle and tends the fire while I cut off the cappings. In a couple of days we've gotten several buckets of good honey ready to take home.

One day when we came into camp from being up at the bee hives there is a big rattler coiled up close to where we dip our water from the creek. He's on the fight and aint about to give ground to man nor beast. Randal gets his .22 lever action rifle and blows old snake's head to bits. Next day some bees came into camp and it wasn't long until there was 100 and then 500. By night fall we knew that we must move camp, so under cover of darkness we go downstream a mile farther. We then finished up the extracting by an elderberry thicket. It's not so nice a camp spot, but the best that can be found. Randal is a good helper and a fun feller to camp with.