|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
The Conviction of Tim Dreste
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Candidate
|
| Contributor | RBH |
| Last Edited | RBH Oct 24, 2012 05:32pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Profile |
| News Date | Wednesday, May 12, 1999 11:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | It's downtime for Tim Dreste, here in these woods that are 57 paved miles, a long gravel road and three left-hand turns on a dirt road west of St. Louis. As he gingerly pries open the lid of the 3-foot-tall honey super, a whirl of maddened Carniolan bees lifts up from the hive like a slow-motion air assault around him. He's fairly safe for now under a cowboy hat, long-sleeved shirt, heavy gloves and black netting, but he strategically reverses the Suzuki SUV on the narrow dirt path, leaving it pointed toward home, keys in the ignition. "Just in case," he says.
Today Dreste is searching for the queen, the elusive mistress of the hive, because if he doesn't find her and clip her wings, she'll sabotage the politics of the colony and his 2-year-old hobby as well. The bees' natural tendency is to divide the hive, Dreste explains, but if he finds the queen and snips her wings, she won't be able to defect with a swarm.
He gently slides a bee-stuccoed frame from its slot, and a complaint rises like heat from the depths of the hive. "You've got to move slow and not distract them too much," he says, slowly reaching down for a handheld smoker, which, for some reason, is supposed to calm them down. "They aren't in too bad of a mood today."
All in all, he figures, he's been stung about 50 times in the last two years, only about a third as many times as he's been arrested. In these four hives alone, there are 200,000 bees, and if he had a $20 bill for every single one, Dreste still wouldn't have enough money to pay off the most recent judgment against him. |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
