For My Troubles

Today the weather is FAB-ulous! I decided to race home over lunch and open the hive to add more sugar. I also wanted to check how much of the pollen substitute they were taking. When I got to the backyard, I could see from the house there were a lot of bees out  guarding the hive and orienting. So strange that I didn't see them doing that last spring when I brought them home as a nuc. I decided it would be good idea to put a veil on and it was definitely a good idea. As I was lifting the roof off I felt one crawling up inside the back of my pants leg. I tried doing a little shimmy dance to shake her out and when that didn't work tried to squish her before she stung, but nope she drilled me right where the sun doesn't shine. When I got done putting the hive together and went in to rustle up lunch before heading back to work, I noticed the pain was building to a crescendo instead of subsiding, so I knew the stinger was probably still in. Sure enough after some extremely unattractive contortions with a mirror I scraped the stinger out and was left with a slightly larger and warmer posterior. If only she would have given me a therapeutic sting in the knees or the back. That would have been so much nicer.