Back in the good old days of first year university, I found myself facing a summer job search (as one does). At that point in my life, I had only ever done customer facing typical-teenage jobs: 3 separate stints as a swim coach, instructor, and/or lifeguard. One stint as a cashier, which was definitely my least favourite job. Don’t think I cut out for grocery store customer service. Perhaps it was the memories of this abominable experience that spurred me to declare: “From now on, I’m only going to work in career-related jobs!”
Well, that was easier said than done, as a fresh university student with only one year of studies under my belt. Still, I applied to any job I could find. Guelph sets aside dozens of research opportunities for undergrads, and I went on the website and applied to any and every single vaguely environmentally relevant experience.
I got one interview and one offer: a job taking soil samples in a field every day. You would take a university car to the farm fields, take your soil samples, take them back to the lab and sort and process them. That sounded good enough to me and I swallowed a gulp of dread at the thought of a boring, repetitive, lonely summer. Still, I delayed accepting the position until the last day.
In the meantime, a job I had previously applied for but not heard back from re-opened up! A job at the on-campus apiary. That sounded so exciting! I applied, making sure to update my application package from before (though there wasn’t much to add in the two week span since the previous draft) and sent it in. I got an interview! The manager of the apiary was away in Peru, so he sent me the questions and I recorded a video of all my answers. This sounded great for me, since I could practice and rehearse all my answers. I stayed up until 4am that night getting the perfect take. In the email I told them about the soil sampling job and asked them to get back to me before the last day.
Well, the last day came, and still no luck. I slept in until noon that day because I didn’t have class, and when I checked my phone, my heart sank. Looks like a summer of staring at soil for me, I thought. But a couple hours later, I realized my phone was still on do not disturb from the night. Combine that with the fact I slept in, and I had missed several calls from the apiary. I called them back immediately. I got the job! It was quite literally the last hour as the whole summer research assistant positions needed to be formalized and submitted by 4pm that Friday, and I called them back at 3pm.
Thankfully, I secured the role and got to decline the soil sampling one. They found someone else who was hopefully more excited about it than me. Everyone has their thing.
Well, I had a lovely time getting stung by bees for four months. In the first month, everyone wanted to quit, but we knew if we toughed it out we’d get used to the stings and they wouldn’t bother us as much.
By the end of the four-month term, we were so used to the stings they hardly swelled at all anymore. I learned about innovative research techniques, including adapting a car vacuum to become a bee vacuum – cut a hole in the stomach of the vacuum, seal on a mason jar, and suck up bees. Viola, now you have bees in a mason jar.
Sometimes we had to feed baby bees with a pipette, which was difficult as much as it was fun (sometimes they stung you through your gloves) and we tried to artificially inseminate queen bees (hard to do even when you’re staring at a diagram of queen bee anatomy).
The manager told us about bee beards, a competition stunt beekeepers do, getting bees to crawl around their face like a beard, and whoever has the best bee-beard wins (usually they win money to donate to beekeeping or honey bee research).
The manager told us we could do bee-beards ourselves, for fun, at the end of the summer. On a volunteer basis only. Some people were adamantly out. At first, I didn’t want to, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was a once in a lifetime opportunity! Though I loved the bees I didn’t see myself working with them forever, so when else would I have the immunity to stings and the bees on hand to do this?
Well, the day came. To create a bee beard, you find the queen in the hive, put her in a queen trap (a thimble-shaped plastic container) and tie the contraption around your neck. Then, your assistants (you need at least two) shake bees with one quick jerk from their frames onto a sheet of newspaper. You cradle your arms under your chest, like you would if you were holding a baby, and your assistants slide the bees onto you.
Once you have enough bees in your arms, your assistants use smokers to drive the bees up your body towards your face. Before the process begins, you put Vaseline around your nose and cheeks, and that stops the bees from climbing beyond beard-level.
Eventually, all the bees congregate around the queen and form a beautiful bee beard. Then you can take all the pictures you want. I found it was quite heavy, having a bunch of bees hanging off my face! I tried not to move too much. Their fuzzy little bodies crawled around my chin and neck, and though I know that sounds appalling to some, it felt like a warm hug to me.
Then, the worst part: getting the bees off. You climb on top of a tall beehive, and with one sudden motion, take a wide jump and stomp your feet as you land. Hopefully, all the bees shake off and fly away. Unfortunately, not all of them shook off me and I got eight or nine stings. By that time, though, they weren’t that painful.
I’m so glad I got to work at the apiary! If you want to support the Honey Bee Research Centre, go here.
Serena Around the World 