First sting
I
got my first honeybee sting of the season yesterday while checking on
our hives. First of all, let me assure you that it barely hurt
--- having spent all last summer getting mobbed by yellowjackets, I had
forgotten that honeybee stings are nearly painless. That said,
after I came inside, I did a bit of research to prevent it from
happening again.
My first and worst mistake was to open the hive on a cloudy day.
It had rained all morning, but by lunchtime the sun was peeking
out. The bees were just beginning to head out to forage, though,
and the hive was extremely crowded. No wonder one wandered up my
sleeve (which should have been tucked in) and stung my arm. I'm
just glad the bee didn't sting while wandering over more sensitive
areas looking for a way out. Luckily, Mark didn't get a shot of
me ripping off my shirt and running half naked toward the trailer. 
I found a very
useful pdf with two pages of pointers on how to act while
inspecting a hive. I'll be more careful next time.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Wayde --- On the nose has got to hurt. I've been stung in various places, and more sensitive parts of my anatomy hurt a lot more than others...
The good thing about honeybee stings is that even if it hurts like crazy, it seems to go away in five minutes. (Versus a wasp sting that will still be aching an hour later.)