wesleyn wrote:
Hi, my name is Neil, I'm a product design student in Brighton. I'm
looking into possibly doing a home beehive design, and yourselves as
gardeners have probably encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quick
question for you then, are you;

a/ completely unafraid of bees.
b/ very frightened of them - you may even be a confirmed apiphobic
(fear of bees) or cnidophobic (fear of stings).
c/ somewhere in between:
c1/ you are able to keep calm and ignore them, but wont go too
close
c2/ you'll move away / go indoors until they're gone
c3/ you'll try to get rid of them using bug spray etc.

Any replies will be of great value to me, thankyou for taking the time
to read and respond.

c/ somewhere in between. I got stung by a honeybee this summer by my
pile of apples which attracts them, and it hurt like crazy for a long
time, like hours and into the next day, even after I put baking soda
paste on it. That was a first in 30 years. I didn't see that one, but
if I do, I just freeze until they fly off. My grandmother and now my
grandson have developed a very bad allergic reaction to them; luckily so
far I'm ok about that. A bee sting can be deadly for some people.

Other than that, I love them, and never kill any if I don't have to,
inside or out, even the ground wasps. Both honeybees and bumblebees
have found their way into my house, 5 or 7 a day for awhile a couple
years ago, until I guess we got a broken window in the attic fixed,
still a few every summer, and I devised a method to trap them with a
yogurt cup and a knife with a very wide blade (have accidentally killed
a couple that way), and release them outside. I really felt bad when a
bumblebee got trapped between my screen and storm, I cracked the storm
and screen open at the bottom, it was pitiful watching it try to find
its way out, would not come down to the open air, so I was raising and
lowering the screen and storm and accidentally squashed it.

This is how goofy I can get. One summer they were tearing shingles off
the roof, and completely covered the opening for some little ground
wasps that never bothered me, and I was mowing then. They were upset.
I dug until I found some clothing I thought would be protective, looked
mighty weird, and took a rake and pulled the shingles away so they could
get back in their nest.

If one gets in my car when I'm driving, I do feel a little panicky, but
they usually fly right out an open window.

The only things I will kill, don't know about a dangerous dog, are
cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes. The cat has caught a couple mice and
chipmunks. I saved two chipmunks and one mouse, made her drop them. Of
course, I can't save them all. She came to me where I have my computer
holding the the body of a chipmunk in her mouth meowing funny, another
she got by the tail. I made her let them go, they hid in the closet
like I had hoped, I put her out, and shut the door. Then I cracked open
the window and set some peanuts on the windowsill. They both found
their way out. One morning I got up to peanut shells all over my
keyboard lol. By now, I have a Havaheart trap, think I've got it set
right, didn't seem to go near it.

Way more than you asked. Sorry.


Neil