Man’s buzz is ruined by 10,000 bees

AN Irishman, beer and 10,000 bees are three things that are only going to end one way — badly.

Andrew Short, 38, an amateur beekeeper living in Australia, returned home from the Melbourne Comedy Festival on Monday after imbibing a number of alcoholic beverages.

In his slightly heightened state of awareness, he decided it was an appropriate time to move a bee hive containing some 10,000 bees from his back yard to the roof of his house.

Mr Short believed, wrongly, that as it was past midnight the bees would be asleep. He paid the price with 60 stings from the inhabitants of the hive.

“A few beers maybe and a ladder, it’s a bad combination. The problem was, I was up the ladder holding the hive, so the job wasn’t done yet, and at that point it was easier to go up than go down,” he said.

“So they were there stinging my eyes, but I had to carry on to try and make sure that I wasn’t going to fall off the roof any more, so there was a little bit of work to do, and then I said ‘best to go down’.”

Mr Short had to be treated in Western Hospital, Footscray for stings to his face, chest, neck, arms and abdomen. The hospital initially had with concerns of an anaphylactic reaction to the stings.

“My father has it so I thought I may have it too, its life-threatening and can restrict your breathing,” he said.

Mr Short said his main worry was being too frightened to call his wife, who was away with their two young daughters.

“She was away, so I thought it was the perfect night to do it, because you can’t ask the missus to get involved in lifting beehives, oddly,” he said.

The Irishman bought the bees three months ago to have home-grown honey. However, he admits that he thought the bees were going to kill him at one stage.

“There was a point at the top of the ladder where I thought, ‘Oh dear, this could be it’. The swelling has gone down and I won’t be needing Botox anytime soon, that’s for sure.”