I remember the first time I had to deal with the honeymoon bug, in December 2016, after the first year of my honeymoon.
I had travelled to the UK for a three-month holiday, with my husband and children, and I was staying with friends in the country.
I was a little confused about how I was going to deal the honeybugs, as I was in a few countries I hadn’t travelled to before, and no honeybee had yet been sighted.
I also didn’t know if I should take my honey with me or put it in a jar.
I didn’t want to put my kids in the honey, because the bugs could cause some serious health problems.
My husband had already spent a year of his life in intensive care, but I had also spent time at home.
I wasn’t prepared to have to go through what I had done and come home, but he was.
He went straight to the nearest hospital, which had just opened, and the nurse told him to take a sample of his honey and put it on a plate.
He asked for the sample and the worker put the plate in the bin.
Then she handed him a piece of paper, which he read.
The paper said: “This is a sample taken of honey collected from a honey bee at the UK’s Honey Bee Health Centre, which has been tested for presence of the mite, honey bees and a new species of mite called Mycobacterium salivarius.
Please read the enclosed statement carefully.
If you do not accept it, the sample may be returned.”
He was a bit shocked.
“I don’t know what the hell was that?
What’s that supposed to mean?”
I thought it was funny.
“The honey bees,” he said.
“That’s what it said.”
I had heard about honey bee health before, but never from honey bees themselves.
I’d read about mites, but it didn’t sound so scary.
“You have to be careful,” he continued.
“Because if you don’t understand what’s going on, it might mean the mites are in there.”
When I arrived at the Honey Bee health centre, the staff had a clipboard in front of them, and a worker was pointing to a sample labelled “Honey Bee Health”.
It was full of the label, with a little box marked “HONEY”.
I was amazed.
It sounded like a honeybee.
I asked the worker to explain what it meant, and he explained that honeybees have the ability to detect certain mites in their saliva.
“They can recognise them and detect it, and it’s like smelling a particular perfume,” he explained.
The worker said they had found that they could detect the mitts of Mycovirus, and that the mitten mite that was present was called Mycus.
I wondered if they had even tested this particular mite in this sample, but they didn’t.
They only tested the honey.
When I told my husband what was going on and asked if I could put my sample in the jar, he said no.
I felt completely humiliated.
I went back home and looked through the sample, and found that the label was missing.
I couldn’t get the sample back.
I knew that there was no way I was leaving my honey at home with no precautionary measures in place.
My honey wasn’t going to be stored for two months, because there was a chance it could come back with a new mitt.
I tried again, but this time I sent it back.
This time, I was given the option to put the sample in a plastic bag.
I put it into the bag, and when I got home, I put the jar in the fridge.
The next day, I got the sample for testing, and tested it again.
I thought I had tested the sample properly, but the lab confirmed that it was mitt mite and that I should have put the mittens into the jar.
The sample was tested again, and then sent to a lab in the US, which said that it wasn’t a mitt, and had sent the sample to a different laboratory.
This is where things got confusing.
I sent a sample to the lab in France, and they sent me back a sample.
The lab said they would look at the sample.
I called the lab I was sending the sample from, and asked for it to be tested, and was told that the sample was being tested, but that it would not be tested for mitt or honey bee.
It had been sent to the US lab, but then I was told by a representative from the lab that the test had not yet been sent, and so they wouldn’t be able to test the sample until after I received it.
I explained to them that I didn´t want to be put in this situation, and wanted to send my sample to another lab.
They said that they had already sent the samples, and could test them, but if I didn