I’ve kept bees for some time. Lost my hive last fall to robbers (the robbers were bees, not people). It is a pleasant hobby. It teaches one to be calm in the face of catastrophe. Bees are like people, they have their good days and their bad days. If you’re working a hive on one of their bad days, they’ll let you know. If you insist on working the hive on one of their bad days, you will get stung.
Let’s say you’ve lifted up a box, if full can be up to 50 pounds or so, and you get stung, dropping the box is not a good idea. So you have to gently put the box down while the bees are stinging you. Yelling and waving your arms does no impress bees. So you calmly do what you have to do, back off, and deal with the stings. Then go back and close up the hive.
I don’t mean to discourage you. I worked with my last hive for the better part of three years and didn’t get stung once. Wear a veil, of course, but work the hive with bare hands and arms—makes it easier. Take care not to crush a bee, the release a pheromone that tell their hive mates they are in trouble. Do everything slowly and carefully.
It’s a neat hobby. If you have specific questions just ask.
When I four years old, maybe five, I received a cool bee toy. It was a plastic bee that you swung around your head and it buzzed like a real bee. I thought it would be neat to show my new toy to the bees collecting nectar in the empty lot next door.
I learned a lot about bees that day.