Steve Wood ... Would You? Stealing honey
Watch Steve try his (gloved) hand at the art of beekeeping at a Winslow farm.
Honey, so sweet and pure.
It brings joy to people and Pooh bears alike.
But do you know the everyday risk people take to bring you your Honey Nut Cheerios?
Blackwood beekeeper Karl Wirtz is stung with countless reminders of this while making off with the sweet stuff. I wanted to be part of this honey heist.
With the guidance of the Golden Splendor Honey purveyor and with the protection of a bee suit that was likened to "a bee tank," I spent part of a September afternoon harvesting this golden nectar.
I arrived to a Winslow Township farm confident of surviving this stunt, having lived through a few bee stings in my adolescence without any allergic reaction. The Trent Reznor part of me even wanted to be reminded of the feeling.
But I felt much less brave when Wirtz asked how my body reacted to a hornet or wasp bite, something I had assumed was more toxic than a bee sting.
Wrongly assumed, he says, whipping my memory back to a recent Gloucester County College trail run where I was attacked by a couple hornets and saw my left arm balloon to the size of Pop Eye's.
Wirtz, on the other arm, has built an immunity to the stings, allowing him to brave hives holding about 60,000 bees each in a mere T-shirt and shorts while enduring occasionally more than a hundred stings a day. Hundred?
Even equipped in my bee tank, this just got real.
But as they say, pain is temporary, honey is forever.
Got an interesting challenge or idea for me to check out? Contact me at (856) 486-2474, email@example.com, or @CP_SteveWood