(no subject)

[blue_lotus13]

Today I drove two hours to the Honey capital of Canada, the small town of Falher. Viewers of "Hockeyville" may remember Falher as one of the contestants. The town is very French, so French in fact that the stop signs and many of the other signage is in French as well as English.

I met a lot of nice people and took photos and waited, eager to photograph the Bee Beard. I ended up waiting, and waiting and waiting, which enabled me to read some HP7. After a while, someone told me that an older Peruvian couple, who were wearing yellow shirts that said "Sanchez honey" on them, were helping organize the bee beard event.
I started talking to the man, who soon introduced himself as Ricardo. Richardo and his wife Julia Marina, who was 4 foot something, immigrated to Canada from Peru in 1991. They have 3 grown sons who moved as well, and numerous cute grandchildren, many of whom live in Falher too. They run a bit of a bee farm. When they found out that I could speak some Spanish, they began speaking in Spanish with me. Julia Marina kept on grabbing my arm, and leaning in close to speak Spanish. I could understand about 80% of what she was saying!
Eventually their sons showed up with a truck and a box containing 20,000 bees. I put my hand on the outside of the box and felt the thousand of bee legs on my hand. Richardo wanted to show me what happened when a bee stings, so he grabbed a bee and made it sting him, even though I insisted that he didn't have to do that.
One of the sons, Jose, was to wear the bee beard. Two of the brothers, Fernando and Jose, climbed into a big wire cage where the bee beard event was to take place. They smoked the bees out with smoke. Jose took out his shirt and put a small vial of bee pheromones around his neck. The bees were brought out of their box onto the cardboard and eventually on to Jose. His nose and eyes were covered with cream so the bees would not go near them. When the bees were calm and mostly settled on Jose, the brothers let me into the cage where I took photographs.

Fernando even took pictures of me standing beside the bee-ridden Jose, but they're not on my camera, unfortunately. I'll post them when the family sends them to me.

Even though I was standing next to more bees than I'd ever been around in my life, I really wasn't scared. The Sanchez family had really prepared me and instructed me on the proper way to act around bees. They were an incredibly sweet family and such a pleasure to meet.

Comments

[starfishchick]

That's super-cool! I like bees, but not hornets or wasps. I have had a thing for bees and apiculture since I read a book called "Prescription Z" when I was a child, about a boy who goes into a beehive to live with bees.

I can't wait to see the pictures!

[lueread.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you know that my dad's a beekeeper. I suited up and was working the bees with him one time. I couldn't take if for more than 1/2 an hour because of the noise, which freaked me out more than anything. The more you learn about them the more interesting they are.