Tater Tot gets stung

TT came over to play bees with me yesterday. My job: assess the condition of the bee colonies, decide which to steal honey from to give to the poorer hives, and decide who might and might not survive the winter. Later I’ll “deal with” the condemned hives (I’ll combine them with healthier hives as long as there’s no disease. The condemned queens go into the freezer for mad scientist experiments in the spring). Tater tot, or TT’s job is to chatter, ask questions and keep notes. Here is an example of TT:

“Mr. Sieling, I’m sorry for hanging up so abruptly on you. My dad was ready to bring me over and I’m like, well, as soon as I hung up the phone I’m like oh my goodness, I think I hung up awfully abruptly on you. I hope you’re not offended…”

“Don’t worry, TT. It sounded like a normal goodbye to me.”

“I hardly ever use my gloves anymore. Do you remember how I used to be so nervous around bees? I was quite jumpy, but now I’m getting used to them. Can you pick up a bee without it stinging you?

“Yes.” I poked at one to demonstrate. “Now TT, it's time to take notes.

“Would you like them in print or cursive?”

“Last time you said you couldn’t print.”

“I’ve been working on my printing this summer. I really could do it, I just didn’t like to very much and wasn’t very neat.”

“Print this time. I already have a sample of your cursive in case I want to do a psychological analysis.”

I dictate. TT writes. At a tall hive: “Mr. Sieling, can I come over and look in that hive? I mean, I don’t have to if you want me to keep taking notes.”

“Come on over.” TT comes over and peers inside. “Strange,” I think out loud. “Lots of half filled comb and no bees working it. Let’s take this super off and check the next one down.”

“Can I take it off?”

“Can you lift 30 lbs?”

“I think so.”

“Don’t grab underneath, you’ll squish a handful of bees…”

Just as TT lifted the box, she started and winced. I felt a poke on my thumb, another, then one on the leg.

“Set it down carefully.” TT let go the box and backed away, her hands up in the air like someone had a gun pointed at her. I followed.

“Let’s see your stings.” She hadn’t removed the stingers. I brushed them off.

“I’m glad I finally got stung.” She said. “I’ve been praying that I would get stung—wanted to get that part of beekeeping over with so I wouldn’t get discouraged later. How many stings did you get?”

“Two, no three.”

“Oh.” TT was disappointed.

“But yours are swelling a lot better than mine. Look—your hand is starting to look like an inflated rubber glove. I’ll close up the hive and we’ll go put some ice on it.

Back at the house she held the ice pack for nearly three minutes. We looked through Bee Culture Magazine. Then I drove her home.

“Nice you have someone of the same maturity level to play with,” my wife said.

Can you guess how old TT is by the dialogue? The closer you get, the higher the score. The answer in a couple days.