The Connector - Spring 2008 - (Page 21)

RWAU Spring 2008 Bees on the Pipeline Jim Watts, Source Water Technician W ith a burning pinprick, I pulled the honeybee from the back of my hand. The sharp sting raced through my hand, then on to the nerve endings in my fingertips. I opened my mouth, then, closed it again without a word spoken. “Ahh,” I thought to myself, does this bring back memories. With each pulse of the remaining stinger there would be another shotlike burning sting. With my index fingernail, I made one quick scrape where the stinger pulsated, and it was gone. But the pain raced on with the welt well-pronounced. Then, in no time, swelling had covered the back of my hand and half way up my arm. Again I found myself thinking of some twenty years in the past, tearing clothes from my body to extract the bees that had infiltrated them. This was all happening as my son and I raced to escape a wild swarm of bees. I probably had it coming—these girls were just protecting their hive and their precious queen. Some co-workers and I had been out walking our drinking water pipeline. It led from the mountain spring boxes along the mountainside nearly five miles. Then it dropped down to our five-million-gallon water storage tank about a quarter of a mile down below. We were checking the pipeline for leaks and the valves and breather boxes for any problems from the past winter months. One of the breather boxes had been partially covered with dirt and rocks from plowing off the narrow one-lane path of the pipeline road. It had been covered some time in the previous fall, making a perfect home for a wayward swarm of honeybees. This is where my son, Scott, and I came into the picture with the bees. We had been raising bees and had ten or so hives of our own. Every chance we had, we would get a swarm of bees that escaped from someone else’s hives to set out on their own. That’s when we were called by the local police to go get them. We loved the challenge. Swinging from the tree tops with one hand and a mad swarm of bees in the other always proved to be a new experience. The real challenges were climbing down out of the tree tops using just one hand, and not getting stung too badly, or dropping the swarm in the process. Once the queen was safely in a box on the ground, it was just like the cartoons where thousand of bees would be flying in a whirlwind form. Then in no time, all would be funneled into the same box with their beloved queen. The lid would be securely attached, and they would be on their way to a new home to produce honey for the Watts family. My boss gave me the go ahead to try and claim the bees from the pipeline breather box. This is where it got real interesting—for a week after work each night, my son and I tried everything to coax the bees from their covered fortress. The last night before their total extinction, we made one last effort to save these bees and give them a new home. The Connector 21

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Connector - Spring 2008

The Connector - Spring 2008 Table of Contents President's Message Executive Director's Comments Letters From Readers Legislative Update RWAU Board and Staff Rural Water News Bees on the Pipeline, Jim Watts How Important are our Public Works People? Curtis Ludvigson A "What" Protection Plan? Erin Borger Meter Reading by Radio Communication, Terry Smith Advanced Distribution, Chuck Jeffs Where in Utah?

The Connector - Spring 2008

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