My parents kept bees, at one point they had 10 hives

Whenever there was a swarm in the community my father was called to collect it

And he taught me how to help him

A swarm is how bees “reproduce” 

They create new queens in the hive and then leave with the queen to find a new home

They form a bunch, protecting the queen

While certain bees fly around searching for a new home

The way you collect them is wait until dusk, when they start to go to sleep

The bunch is biggest then

Put a box underneath and whack the branch with a stick

The bees fall in a box, you cover them with a blanket

When it’s dark and they are asleep you transfer them to a new hive

It's quite normal to do with without any protection on

One way to get them to form a bunch is to use the water from the hose 

Which you spray either side of the swarm to get them to form the bunch

You start waving the hose a long way from the bees and gradually bring it closer

You want to collect as many of the bees as you can

This day I was on hose duty

My Dad was standing there with a stick ready to hit the branch to get the bees into a box

All of a sudden, it was like a swarm of bees in a cartoon

The whole swarm just attacked me

I ran into the house, trying to whack the bees off me

My father is also smacking my head trying to kill them

Anyway, I was taken to the local doctors and given a shot

Next day, I was in my first exam, still pulling stings out of my head

I passed the exams

Years later when I visited my dad in the nursing home 

Dad was very frail 

He asked me “if I forgave him for letting the bees attack me” 

With tears in my eyes, I said of course I forgave him, and held his hand

I said it was one of those things we should look back on and laugh about

Because of his Dementia, I repeated that I forgave him.