Looks like I found my mentor...

[zopi]

Saw a house between here and the dump station today..took a route I hadn't taken before...old fellow has 11 hives out, and all but two
with four or five medium supers on...bees bearding up and fanning...could hear them from the road...

So I stopped to make his acquaintance...we seem to be peas in a pod, he seems to have all the same kind of interests as I, and said he would help me out with a few swarms when the time came...he seems to have some pretty calm hives...

He had to laugh at me when we went out to the bee yard...of course me in shorts and a t shirt...I got a little too close to one of the brood hives, and the got a little torqued at me and started bumping me...I said "Aww get down, I won't bother you"...and they did...

[asprince]

Congratulations! There is nothing like a good mentor. My mentor is now my best friend and partner. I am recovering from a broken vertebra and he picks me up and takes me to the bee yard so I can watch him work my bees. He tells me that payback time will come.


Steve

[zopi]

Congratulations! There is nothing like a good mentor. My mentor is now my best friend and partner. I am recovering from a broken vertebra and he picks me up and takes me to the bee yard so I can watch him work my bees. He tells me that payback time will come.


Steve

Thanks! This fellow is going to be needing some help over the next few years...heckuva farmer..just wore out..

[FRAMEshift]

I have a similar story.  I went to visit a local beek ( I heard about him from the guys in the lumber yard when I was buying some cypress for a long hive.)  He is an older guy with about 20 hives.  He had just taken 25 lbs of honey that morning, so apparently his bees were a bit upset.  I walked into the bee yard wearing a dark purple shirt and no protection.  I was confronted by a guard bee almost immediately and was stung on the hand within the first minute.  The old beek thought that was pretty funny because his bees didn't bother him at all.  But he took the time to show me his operation... a nice air conditioned honey house with a big extractor.