Adventures with Bees

Buzz buzz, that's the kind of bee I mean!  As Ben and I were working in the backyard a few weeks ago a colony of bees descended upon us!  It was crazy, like something out of a horror movie!

We initially thought we had angered the bees during our bush trimming, but upon retreating into the house and jumping onto the computer for help we soon discovered the real cause.  Just ignore my monologue during the video clip, the bees are not angry and that is why no one got stung! :) 

The bees were actually in the process of breaking off from their old hive and forming a new hive somewhere else.  During this process the whole group moves together and holds up temporarily on a branch somewhere.  Then the scouter bees go out and find a new location (the neighbor's shed).  The bees start setting it up as their new home and then fly over to it on moving day.  Basically, our scrub pine was their Motel 6 while moving.  When we discovered they were going to be our new next door neighbors, we decided we didn't want their kind in our neighborhood, yeah were prejudice like that, so we called a local bee farmer to pick them up and take them to a new home somewhere far, far away from us.

Enter Bob from Bob's Bee Farm!  The man is fearless!  I expected him to come in wearing a beekeeper's suit, no way not him!  He walked up in a t-shirt and began smoking the bees with some pepper tree smoke!  (I apologize for the blurriness of the photo, I was afraid to get very close).

Then he lifted up the branch to get a closer look at what he was dealing with.

Ben was his assistant, while I stayed at a comfortable distance.

The purple crate on the ground is where he will put the bees when he removes them.  He customized the crate by lining it with a fine wire mesh and attaching a Plexiglas lid.

Ben brought the camera in close for you so you could see the bee dogpile!  It's nothing but bee on top of bee!

Bob doesn't even wear gloves, here he is going in to retrieve the bees, you gotta watch the video, he is so tough!

 

If you look real close you can see our bee friends in their travel box!  Buh-bye bees!

Bob is quite the fun fellow, he brought along his three person bicycle in his truck.  Ben just had to try it, so now we can say we have ridden a bike built for 3!  Sorry folks no videos here, way too embarrassing!

Have you had any buzzing adventures lately?  Share your fun stories with me so we can swap survival tales!