Jun. 6, 2006 - Proverbs 24:13 My son, eat thou honey, because it is good; and the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste

We are beekeepers and we made a big mistake this year. We let our hive get way to full and the hive started to make a new queen. After they did that they took the existing queen and half the bees and a gorged on honey and decided to leave. This is about them swarming and how we caught them step by step. My husband found out when he heard them leaving the hive. They were pouring out of the hive and flying into the air.  The hum of the bees flying out of the hive filled the air. You could see the air coated with bees everywhere. All the specks in the photos are bees.   Then the bees gathered in a ball around the queen on a few tree branches above the hive they came out of. Now we had to figure out how to reach them. We could not even get close to them with a ladder. Rick came up with the idea to cut the tree down. Since the tree was not to big he thought we could lower it down. We did not have a rope but we had an extension cord! It was tied firmly onto the tree and then wrapped around a neighboring tree to give us some leverage. I held on tight to the cord. (Don't mind my appearance.) He cut a hinge out of the tree after he lowered the barb wire around the area and then came where I was and we lowered the tree slowly to the ground. All was going well when the tree rolled and the bees landed a little hard. Part of them fell to the ground and many of them took flight! We worked quick and put them into cardboard boxes and taped them shut. It was quite a job! We prepared a new hive for the home. How did we get them in it you ask? It was absolutely amazing how this works. We laid out a white sheet in front of the hive box. Then we opened the boxes and dumped them on the sheet. They simply marched right up into the new home! Marvelous! Thousands and thousands of bees marched up the homemade sheet ramp right into the hive. You can actually see them going into the slit on the bottom of the hive. The hum still filled the air as the ones that were airborne continued to fly around and land. We looked in the box and discovered that in just a few hours the bees had begun to build in the box. They were going to begin making comb right in the box. Moral of the story: Bee a busy bee and don't procrastinate. We could have avoided this all if we would have taken care of things when they needed to be done. Proverbs 6:6 Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.

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Comments

Jun. 6, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by hsmomof2

Wow, that is amazing! I am a wanna-be beekeeper and am reading a lot about bees right now. Loved reading this and seeing your pictures!

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Jun. 7, 2006 - Wow

Posted by DanielleW

That is a lot of bees! =oO I'm glad they didn't go far. I guess that saying busy as a bee is very appropriate. I'm also glad Rick is such a resourceful guy. ;o)

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Jun. 8, 2006 - Bees & your blogs.

Posted by Shannon

Hey there ya'll. I've been wanting to tell ya I really like yer blog pages! They are totally awsome! Very interesting & insightful! The bee thing is totally amazing! Looks like those bees are gonna keep ya busy building houses for them. Keep up the cool info. Talk to ya'll soon. Shannon & Joe & kids

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Jun. 9, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Dini HJ

Wow, that is amazing! I loved the photos and story, and feel like I got an education. Thank you for sharing that! (In case you wonder who I am, I'm one of Danielle W's friends, but I don't have a blog here. Mine is on Xanga. :-))

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Jun. 10, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Prncsstefy

Danielle sent me too. How amazing God's creatures are. And your post was a nice science lesson for me.

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Apr. 27, 2007 - Cool pics

Posted by Micah Klesick

Hey, I keep bees and I caught three swarms last year. The one thing I have never seen is the bees swarming. But then, all my swarms I get called to come and get them from other people. :-)

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