Very nice!
In your first picture you capture the whole Spirit of NZ: smiling people doing something outdoors and getting around with a ute. Only the dog is missing.
That's a great compliment Juhani and I like to see my country the same way. And of course you are totally qualified to make the statement having lived here and worked for a commercial beekeeper here for 2 years. Plus your later visit when I had the pleasure of meeting you, and your own lovely family.
And Riskybizz, fair comment, and i expect many beekeepers would share your views. Where I come from, is the first commercial beekeeper I worked for back around 45 years ago was unusual among commercial beekeepers in that he liked to work with no veil, and expected his staff to do the same. So for some jobs, such as pulling honey in the robbing season, there's just no way you can work with no veil, and he did not expect that, but some jobs and times of year we worked with no veil. Took me probably 3 months and most likely thousands of stings before I could absolutely read a hive and control it exactly, I've worked with lots of beekeepers since, and always feel how rough they are as they are always in a protective suit.
The kids were at risk of being stung there is no way I could say it was impossible to happen. But I told them they might get stung. My view, is the odd bee sting is part of growing up, and how a child deals with that is about mental attitude, which comes from the adults they are influenced by. Having said that, I have introduced hundreds of people to beekeeping over the years including classes of school children, and people in prison, generally with them not wearing protection and not once I can remember anyone being stung. But I do put people in a veil if I think the need is there, plus I show people exactly how I'm controlling the bees and how it works, so they know they could never try it themselves without me there, unless they have considerable experience first.
No excuses though, I know some folks will think I'm crazy, and I accept that. My own view, I do feel like I can assess the risks and have peoples chances of being stung very close to zero.
