# You Realize You're a Beekeeper When...



## xC0000005 (Nov 17, 2004)

Your wife says "There's a bee in the car", and you say "Is it one of mine?" or "Hand it here",


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

You can't remember the names of your neighbor's kids, but you can name every tree and flower in his yard and when they bloom.


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

Mine was going to be "You don't mow your lawn for a month because the dandelions are blooming" then I went and read the first post. Dang! Now I'll have to think of something else


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

You buy so much sugar the local grocery thinks your the biggest moonshine distiller in the county.


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## abeille (Jun 12, 2003)

When your neighbors call you to get the yellow jackets nest they have under the porch. You are the "beeman", you should know what to do with those "bees"...


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## Big Stinger (Feb 17, 2006)

When you want to spray some round up or brush killer and think what if the bees get into this. Then you crank up the weedeater and go at it. Also when you need to spray your garden to keep it from being eatn by bugs you just let the buggs eat on.

[ April 20, 2006, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: Big Stinger ]


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## power napper (Apr 2, 2005)

1-When in a store you see a jar of honey or pollen and the first thing you check is the price!
2-While riding down a highway you keep telling whoever will listen--this really looks like a good place to keep some bees!
3-The fed x guy, the ups guy, and the mailman all know you as the "Bee guy".


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## iddee (Jun 21, 2005)

When you can't haul anything in your pick-up in may or june because you won't unload the empty hive and nuc, the ladder, and other swarm catching equip.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

When your driving down the highway and keep looking to your left and right for little boxes stacked up on top of each other while your wife thinks you are a crazy driver.


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## Todd Zeiner (Jun 15, 2004)

When your kid takes a drone on a string to school and scares the other kids on the playground.


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

Instead of those hand buzzers, your 'party trick' is to pull a drone out of your pocket and hand it to someone...


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

When everything you got is sticky.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

The dandelion one is the best for sure.

Buying 400# of sugar at the local grocery.

Feeling bad after a bee stings you because it had to die doing it.  

Another is my wifes look as I dash around the house trying to let a bee out that snuck it.


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## Craig W. (Feb 26, 2006)

When you finally cut your grass and find your car. LOL


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

>The dandelion one is the best for sure.

Naw, for me it's clover. My yard gets way too high when the clover is blooming. When it gets high it is REAL hard to cut.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

when you use the single supers you hived swarms in and put in the front yard as lawn chairs.

when your pacing back and forth in the living room in the middle of winter and breaking out in cold sweats and shaking, saying "I need to go through a beehive, i need to work something" as your suffering bee withdrawl.

when someone asks you how your doing and answer back "my bees are doing great and so am I" and then totally bore them to peices as you rattle on about your bees.

i actually planned our wedding around the bees

your wife packs your suit case when you say your going to visit a fellow beekeeper.

when you get p!$$ off at municapily workers for cutting road side flowers.

you plead with your neibours to not cutt their lawn until after the dandions in the spring and then for the clover in the summer.

use our honey for bribes or barter

regret buying your wife that little jeep because you knew you could of either bought a truck that could've been used for the bees or you could've just bought more bee equipment.

when you produced 28,000 pounds of honey from your 160 hives on the year you weer to graduate from high school.

when as your walking through the tool section at the local hardware store your thoughts are "how could i use that in my bee operation"

when the greatest moment of the year is when you receive your new bee equipment catalog and price list.

another of your favorite pass times is going through that catalog and making plans with a budget and knowing you made it work so good that a financial planner would've turned green with envy seeing your work.

when anything and everything in the house can be used for bees.

you hope your wife never says it's either me or the bees because you'd hate to see her go.

when any of your freinds come over to visit you give them a hammer and put them to work building frames.

never could another man be as inventive as the beekeeper, we are one of the most innovative breeds, we could come across a problem and use anything handy from either our fly zipper to strands of hair from our unkept head of hair.

when after having a shower and your just crawling into bed you get stung in the armpit(still don't know how she got there).

your a dang good carpenter....when it comes to building hive equipment.

you hope that there's bees in heaven


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## gardenbees (May 8, 2005)

When it takes you twice as long to get somewhere because you are checking out what's blooming on the side of the road. Theresa.


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## Troutsqueezer (May 17, 2005)

You spend your lunchtime at work everyday reading the Bee Forum.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

when your wife smells smoke on your clothes and knows you've been working the bees, not the bar.


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## tarheit (Mar 26, 2003)

You bought a bigger mower that can handle grass a foot tall so you don't have to mow when dandelions are blooming. (And again when the clover blooms)

Chemlawn calls and you ask if they have anything that will make the dandelions and clover grow bigger (And maybe kill all of this annoying grass you have to mow and make more room for more dandelions and clover).

All of your vacations include a beekeeping visit.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

When you can't sleep because you are thinking about what you need to do with or for the bees.

Your thinking about:

feeding sugar syrup, supering up, boxes-to-build, frames to assemble, queens to raise, forgot to empty the pollen traps and its gonna rain, nucs to make up, labels to order, honey-to-bottle, etc etc... 

Heck there's no time for sleep.


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

The local hardware guys in surrounding towns know you by name, and tell you, "no we don't have any miss-mixed paint today".

The neibor cross town calls and tells you to come get your bees out of HER wall.

You don't have to mow the yard, because it's covered with stacks of bee boxes.

You've driven 10 miles looking for the first dandilion bloom.

You always know what pollen is in season.


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## FordGuy (Jul 10, 2005)

after one whiff of the lemongrass oil on your suit, your wife asks if you have been 'nasing off' again..

(taps microphone, begins to explain, "uh, that was a reference to nasanov..")


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>You feel bad about mowing the lawn because the dandelions are blooming.

You mow when dandelions are blooming?

I don't mow at all.


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

You get excited about going to work in the morning, only because you have a swarm box right outide your office window.


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## buz (Dec 8, 2005)

The school principal calls you when he finds a swarm hanging from the bleechers two hours before graduation.........

You call him back when the bees are in a box and ask where he wants his bees?

You drive out on a swarm call to discover its the home of some your students and they ask if you're not scared? You have to admit this is not half as bad as teaching at a high school.

This is my topper---the wife asks a passing be "Where's Tom" and she is lead right to me.


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## Todd Zeiner (Jun 15, 2004)

When your wife has to mix her own batch of propolis-beeswax perfume just to get you to pay attention to her


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>Buying 400# of sugar at the local grocery.

Yup. 2 full shopping carts...

>When your wife has to mix her own batch of propolis-beeswax perfume just to get you to pay attention to her

Todd... Todd... give her Epiphany, for Beekeepers. A little dab behind each ear...


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## busybguy (Apr 28, 2005)

someone says "there's a bee on your neck and you reply- "ain't she a cutie"


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## busybguy (Apr 28, 2005)

when you're all the time thinking of honey supers and not super honies


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## DCH (Aug 30, 2004)

When you find yourself correcting anyone who mistakens yellow jackets for bees.

When you burn precious PTO days from work in the spring because weekends are full or rainy and Wednesday is going to be just beautiful for getting into the hives (and it was too!)


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## busybguy (Apr 28, 2005)

even before I kept bees I used to "ticklestart" bumblebees in the mornings to get them going after a cool night on a flower. I knew then I was destined to be a beekeeper ( although my wife said I was jusr plain nuts)


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

"I used to "ticklestart" bumblebees in the mornings to get them going after a cool night on a flower."

That anything like cow tippin?


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## wade (Apr 1, 2006)

You're in a new neighborhood and notice a beautiful crabapple tree in full bloom but you're looking to see how many bees are working it so that you might have another good place to put a swarm box.


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## JP (Jul 10, 2005)

you feel pitiful when you have to eradicate a colony rather than destroy someones house, barn, fireplace, boat, etc...to remove them live.

your dogs salivate at the smell of honey on your clothes.

you spend as much time as you can afford and some you can't visting bee websights.


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## TwT (Aug 5, 2004)

when people ask you what can they get you for christmas and you say "get me one of 3 things, A Package, Nuc or some Bee equipment!!!


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## The anonymous buzzing bee (Jul 26, 2005)

http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/youknow.htm


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## mac (May 1, 2005)

When you find yourself in Paris France and you don't have time to visit the bees at the botanical gardens, and you decide you'll have to make a return visit just to check out French bees.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

After working bees all day and evening, you can still hear the bees buzzing when you try and fall asleep.

After catching queens all day, you see them running around combs when you dream.

Jean-Marc


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

When you close your eyes to go to sleep and you still see honeycomb pattern.


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

When "the girls" no longer means your wife and daughters.

When the first thing you do in the morning and when you get home in the evening is run down to the bee yard to check on the girls.


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## beaglady (Jun 15, 2004)

When you spend part of a Saturday morning in February sitting backwards on a muck tub in the back of a cart, pulled by hubby driving the lawn tractor, holding onto a walk-behind broadcast spreader, so you can frost seed 50# of alsike clover seed on the pasture before the snow starts.


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## Aspera (Aug 1, 2005)

You remark on the beauty of that female with the numbered dot on her back.....and your friend asks if her daughters are good producers


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## divebee (Mar 15, 2006)

You find yourself going out at night with a flashlight to look at a hive.


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## Barefoot-In-Florida (Dec 6, 2005)

When not working your bees, you spend all your free time on this forum.


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## beecron (Nov 7, 2004)

When you are on this forum and mumble under your breath why there aren't more new threads or recent posts since you were on it an hour ago.


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## leafcutter (Mar 16, 2006)

When bike riding, you use your arm to signal a turn, and your wife blows past you into an intersection thinking you had just been pointing at someone's bee hives.


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## Sourwood (Mar 20, 2005)

When you find that you believe your favorite big yellow queen looks better than your wife...


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## ekrouse (Aug 26, 2004)

You cut back on the kind of work that makes money, so you can put more time into beekeeping which always seems to lose money.


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## ejhamm (Apr 22, 2006)

You spend more each year on bee equipment, meds etc...., than you'll ever make in honey sales.

then tell the wife, we should make this back "next year".


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

When your living room looks like a beehive factory...

No lie!


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## peggjam (Mar 4, 2005)

No, no, no, George, it's beehive factory/honey house.


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## Roger Morrison (Apr 17, 2004)

You purchase a wireless thermometer and decide that a good place for a remote sensor is inside a hive. (Right now it is 94.3 degrees in the hive and 44.6 degrees outside.)


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## mdotson (Jun 18, 2005)

You give your 6 year old grandaughter a drone for a pet. When you are driving you are looking for swarms.

[ April 23, 2006, 07:37 PM: Message edited by: mdotson ]


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## GeeBeeNC (Aug 23, 2005)

you get excited when you see that MB has answered one of your posts.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

when you've orderd bee equipment and wait for it with the same antipation you had as a kid waiting for christmas morning to open presents and then when it does arrive you tear open the boxs as if they were christmas presents and gleefully proclaim "gee, it's like christmas all over again"


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## joey33 (Aug 12, 2004)

when you brag about how body parts don't swell after a sting (she got me good there ! see yall

when you brag abut how body parts do swell after a sting (she got me good there ! see yall

when your wife's snoring causes you to dream of buzzing bees


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## spacemoose (Sep 25, 2005)

when your wife starts to prepare supper, and has to come to the "little shack out back" to find her pans,knives,& other kitchen items !!


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## spacemoose (Sep 25, 2005)

oh yeah, another one.... when guests arrive,instead of asking for their coats, you ask them what size coat they wear,so you can hand them the right sized bee-jacket


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## BULLSEYE BILL (Oct 2, 2002)

When you see yourself on the ten o'clock news rescuing a swarm from a terified ladies car in the grocery store parking lot.


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## kenr (Sep 25, 2005)

When your favorite flowering (spring) tree is LOCUST


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## Action (Jan 8, 2005)

I love Locust trees, I have about 10 or so at the house. Just starting to bloom real good now.Helps keep the bees away from the buckeye. Sorry thought this was a post on Locust trees
Jack


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## livetrappingbymatt (Jan 13, 2006)

when your favorite ride is on the extractor around the liveingroom!
bob


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## MichelleB (Jan 29, 2006)

When the Nasonex commercial comes on TV, you check the bee for computer-generated Varroa mites. 

And you tell the person sitting next to you that it looks more like a yellowjacket than your typical Italian honeybee drone. 

And then your friend tells you you're a complete dork.


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## Marcus Griffin (Feb 3, 2005)

When you prefer the company of thousands of stinging insects to most people.


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## Fernhill (Dec 30, 2004)

When your friends wonder why you smell like you've been sitting around a campfire!


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## mal (Dec 24, 2005)

When your wifes says there is a bee stinging you and you look at her and say oh where?
or when your in walmart and a complete stranger ask if you have any honey for sale. 
or when a stranger calls you and says come get these bees in her tree.


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## uncletom (Apr 4, 2003)

Your kitchen table is covered with packages waiting for the weather to break so you can put them in.

you keep a bucket down at the hives to sit on well drinking the morning coffee and the evining beer.

you wish you could incorperate the aroma of fresh cut pine together with bees wax into a perfume for the wife... then get her to wear it.

you plan the one and only annual weekend get away for you and the wife around the pick up date for the packages.

tom


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## merops_apiaster (Jul 16, 2005)

When you can stop the bees on the air as Neo stopped the bullets on the air in the film Matrix.


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## Barry Digman (May 21, 2003)

When that smart aleck young kid down the road who tromps through your flower bed and puts firecrackers in your mailbox, and to whom you usually wouldn't even give the time of day, asks "Are those BEES mister?!?" and you spend the rest of the afternoon with a short person in an ill-fitting veil explaining what's REALLY inside the box.


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## artic (Feb 18, 2005)

*Lupine*, I'm sad to say I've had the exact same kind of conversation involving the very same commercial. I still contend that it is a yellow jacket, and even if it were a bee it is obviously male and should not be foraging.


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## merops_apiaster (Jul 16, 2005)

when it itches to you a bee and your woman says you if you have felt the ecstasis.


[ May 07, 2006, 01:20 AM: Message edited by: merops_apiaster ]


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## George Fergusson (May 19, 2005)

>I'm sad to say I've had the exact same kind of conversation involving the very same commercial.

I came in the house the other afternoon and hugged my wife, gave her a big smooch and said in my best imitation "My flower, I have returned- a changed bee" and got a marvelous reaction... or was it the Epiphany for Beekeepers I was wearing?

Hmmmmm...

>and your woman says you...

Merops, your woman has a funny sense of humor. Have you stung HER lately?


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## merops_apiaster (Jul 16, 2005)

http://album.miarroba.com/merops_apiaster/23/slide/
Just like insects


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## jim b (Oct 3, 2004)

Not mine to claim-probably read it here.

You know you're a beekeeper when you clear your throat and expectorate toward the ground only to find you are wearing your veil.


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

jim b, if that's the case, I'll never know I'm a beekeeper. I hate my veil; it always seems to be in my way and I have a heck of a time spotting eggs through it. Didn't think anyone was comfortable in their veil. Maybe I've got the wrong veil. . .


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

You'll know you are a beekeeper when you can work your bees without a veil. At least some times.

No veil, no gloves and no suit.

I guess Charles Mraz may have been the only "real" beekeeper I've known of. He used to work his bees in his swim trunks and sandals.


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## jim b (Oct 3, 2004)

Tia-
I think you've got the right idea.
I think i've got the wrong bees!-j


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>You'll know you are a beekeeper when you can work your bees without a veil. At least some times.

>No veil, no gloves and no suit.

Or when you learn what a really bad idea that really is...


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Oh come on Michael. Don't you enjoy working your bees without things in between you and your bees? Do you always wear a suit, gloves and a veil?

The Africans haven't gotten to your neighborhood yet, have they?

A bright sunny day with a mild breeze and during a nectar flow. No veil, no gloves, nirvana.


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## Tia (Nov 19, 2003)

I'm with Michael. I'll skip the gloves and suit most of the time (too hot), but I'll never go into a hive without my veil again! I learned the hard way. It's funny and I know I'm anthropomophizing (sic), but the girls seem to know they can't "get at me" when I have the veil on and I get nary a head butt, but leave the veil off and WHAM! Guaranteed. I've broken my own rule several times and most times I pay for it!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Oh come on Michael. Don't you enjoy working your bees without things in between you and your bees? Do you always wear a suit, gloves and a veil?

I am often foolish enough to open a hive because I happen to be in someones apiary (often mine) without a veil. But I should know better.







My bees? Yes when I go out with the intent to work the bees, I always wear a jacket, gloves and a veil, except when I need more dexterity and I take off the gloves. But considering I can catch and mark a queen with gloves on, if I have to, that's not often.


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## MichaelW (Jun 1, 2005)

You know......when you're riding mower is stuck, blowing into a screened bottom board, and bees are boiling out and stinging you!!


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## Jim Calhoun (Apr 10, 2006)

You know you were a beekeeper if your tombstone is marked the same as you mark your hives, is shaped like a hive and has frames.


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## Big Ed (Jul 1, 2005)

Oh my God sqkcrk! I almost spit my diet pepsi all over my monitor. Your reference to Charles Mraz in his swim trunks and sandals instantly gave me a Visual from my neighbor's point of view - me blissfully inspecting my hives, so intune with nature, wearing nothing but a pair of Speedo's that are two sizes too small and a pair of my wife's Birkenstock sandals!  Think Cris Farley here........


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## Big Ed (Jul 1, 2005)

Jim, how about if that tombstone hive was also hollow so swarms could set up there right in the middle of the cemetery? It would make those vandals who tip over grave stones to think twice!


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

When the phone rings and a frantic voice says
"911 said to call you"


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## kc in wv (Feb 1, 2006)

Another one" When they deduct value on your car trade because it smells like a smoker owned it.


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## Jim Williamson (Feb 16, 2006)

If, after a particularly nasty visit to the hives when not wearing a veil, you've ever uttered the phrase "Wof fo dam fummy?"


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## wayacoyote (Nov 3, 2003)

I think the "knowing when to use them" is a better mark of a knowledgable beekeeper than "refuse to use them" when it comes to protective gear. Too often I hear comments, similar to the last, made about rock climbers (regarding ropes), motorcyclists and skateboarders(regarding helmets), etc. I'm not sure why one would regale carelessness over calculated caution. 

Having the ability to "know when" somehow shows more knowledge to me than "not knowing when." Furthermore, recognizing one's responsibility to set an example of rationality and technique to new beekeepers also weighs in. Propagating an image to new beekeepers that they won't be considered a "real" beekeeper until they abandon their protective gear doesn't earn extra points.

Waya


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I guess I just equate the knowledge of when one can work bees without encumberances like gloves and veils as beeing a beekeeper who is comfortable with his bees.

I often assume that I should wear a veil. But many times I let the bees "tell" me when to put it on.

I didn't think that I was dissing anyone for wearing protective gear. I do think that beginners should wear as much as is necessary, for as long as is necessary, until they are comfortable with less.

Personally I find suits too tight and hot and gloves the same, as well as a hinderance when holding supers or frames.

Wear whatever you want. A "real beekeeper" wouldn't let anyone elses opinion bother them.

Michael, what kind of gloves do you have that you can pick up a queen with. Playtex Living Gloves?


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## Troutsqueezer (May 17, 2005)

What if the bees "told" you right to your eyeball...


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Personally I find suits too tight and hot

Because you don't have a Golden Bee Products suit.









> and gloves the same, as well as a hinderance when holding supers or frames.

After working many winters as a carpenter in sub zero weather, I have no problems with dexterity with gloves on. I can sort nails in one hand and nail them with the other with gloves on. I have even done it with mittens on. In -10 F weather, the amount of time you can hold nails in a bare hand is measured in single digit seconds, not minutes.

>Michael, what kind of gloves do you have that you can pick up a queen with. Playtex Living Gloves? 

Deer skin. But I have tried the playtex ones also. They are ok, but my hands get too sweaty in them.

It's nice to think you can always predict what mood the bees will be in. And if you're good, you can -- MOST of the time. It's the one time you are wrong that you learn to wear protective gear. They call it protective for a reason.









When I started beekeeping, I was doing cutouts wearing only a veil. Some were nice. Some were not. After a few that were not, I bought the full coveralls with a zip on veil and bee gloves.


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## Gene Weitzel (Dec 6, 2005)

Back on topic!

You realize your a beekeeper when after about 15 minutes you suddenly understand that when your wife is telling you about what she and the "girls" did today, she means your daughter and grand-daughter.  

You realize your a beekeeper when your boss walks into your office in the morning and upon seeing your left eye nearly swollen shut says "You should see a doctor!" And you reply "For a bee sting?!"


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

You realize that you are a beekeeper when you get stung in the butt while squating in an orchard at 5:30 AM watching the sun coming up over the mountain and lake.

"Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, looks like there's plenty of sunshine, everythings going my way."


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## merops_apiaster (Jul 16, 2005)

When you assume you are not a Jedi, and you have not mental power on your bees, and wearing a veil you forget your...
http://album.miarroba.com/merops_apiaster/16/109/


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## Maine_Beekeeper (Mar 19, 2006)

You know you're a beekeeper When your wife has "jammies" with a zip on veil. 

-APH


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## Todd Zeiner (Jun 15, 2004)

Your kids ask "how cold is it this morning?" And you can look at the hives on the back porch and estimate the exact temp within 5 deg.


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