Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

visiting a doc sounds sensible. I'll probably end up gathering a bit more evidence before I do that (aka procrastinate).

Eh, modern doctors are really only interested in filling perscriptions. At least here in the US. Then again, Australia has a vastly better health care system, so that may not be the case there.

Dazed, the epi-pens are not particularly expensive. You may consider it worthwile to have one in your kit, in case extreme sensitivity does develop. Less effective, but oral (liquid) benadryl will provide some relief as well.
I've had varied reactions to stings in the past. The worst was one of the most recent, 3 years ago, when I rested my forearm on a wasp (i know it's not quite the same as bee) on the car door. I assumed that the pinch was from the weatherstrip, so jiggled my arm a couple times. I finally lifted it to find said wasp, and multiple angry red spots on my arm, which promptly swelled up from elbow to wrist on the bottom, around a prominently raised 5cm diameter bump.
Thankfully, I reacted much less last year when I got four stings from the bees in my hive. I was concerned about a reaction, as I had not been stung since the wasp, but nothing notable occured. I can't blame the bees, I was trying to reassemble the hive after a bear tore it apart and had a snack. The girls were a little irritable, and laid into me, and followed me away for 10 or more meters. They completely ignored my watching wife and son as I ran past them though. I put on the suit before I went back to finish the work.

Our health care system is one of the reasons I'm glad I live here rather than the US. Although our current government seems rather intent on undermining it.

I think I'd be more worried about the bears. If I saw one of those I'd probably produce plenty of my own epinephrine no need for the pen. Nothing like that here. Although once I found one of my hives had had the lid pushed aside and had died or absconded from being rained on repeatedly. A nosy kangaroo maybe.

Not sure how much epi-pens cost here.

Bloody Hell, dropped in to check out the latest on the forum and now it looks like we're getting a bee hive.

Maybe I can still talk her down......maybe

Wow, shows that we all 'fear' that which we don't know. I read about you aussies and your snakes and spiders (and octopi and....) and think how nice it is to have no critters here I need to worry about.
The bears are not normally scary. I haved chased quite a few away. This one though (170-180kg male, been around here for a couple years), wanted his snack. He ignored me until I was less than 10 feet away, then turned and growled at me, I decided I'd better let him finish eating, since he was 30 feet from my house, and 50 feet from my neighbors' houses, so I could not do anything else about it. The hive never did recover.


Best of luck. The bees are my thing, although the wife likes them as well. If you don't talk her out of it, at least they are (in my opinion) easy to care for, and not a lot of work, for a great reward.

I didn't notice this topic.. but I jumped on the bandwagon day 1 and bought a full flow hive... I hope it all goes well for them!

WOW!

Up to $10mil and counting

Whoever sells starter bee hives/queens will be rolling in it soon.

The Flow hive guys have started to expand their offering.

Now includes embroidered bee suits.

Very smart.

I'm interested in hearing what my local beekeeping group thinks of their product. I have a feeling they will be getting a few more members soon... Including me!

I'm not convinced and I don't think it's good hive management. It seems to be a great idea for the beekeeper though.

I question whether the bees would remove the capping and refill the cells or whether they'd still think they're full due to being capped. I'll stick with opening the hive as I can check the queen and brood at the same time.

+1 my thoughts exactly

Some very experienced Bee Keepers and Scientists have tried them and they had similar concerns.


The thing is they found that their concerns were unfounded and that the claims of how well the frames worked were if anything understated.