Summer Moon of the First Harvests
Slow learner. Yesterday, in the blistering heat, Javier and his brother and another worker 
dug up grass in our orchard, a job for which they will be well compensated, but still under difficult working conditions. They did choose the day, btw.
But. In the orchard I have my one bee colony. I decided to help them by clearing out the grass in front of the hive after smoking the bees. Smoked the bees, knelt down and began using my Japanese weeding knife to pull out clumps of grass. Fine. Then I got closer to the hive where some of the girls were hanging out on the ground, enjoying the cool sand there. I had put on the veil (all the stings on my head two years ago convinced me that was a good idea.) but no gloves.
This won’t take long. He thought. And, yes, soon after I began digging up the grass near the lounging workers, some of them got up from the sand and lanced my left hand. Ouch. One sting right on the fleshy part of my thumb hurt like, well, like ouch! So, this is the way the slow learner gets the message, always always always wear gloves if digging in front of the hive. In behavioral psychology they call this aversive conditioning. It works.
