Bee-Swarm-ectomy

Bee-Swarm-ectomy

We had a swarm of bees land in a tree in our back yard the other day. We were surprised when thousands of bees began flying around in the back yard. And then they all landed:







That is a pile o' bees larger than a basketball. Solid bees.

What, you don't believe it's as big as a basketball? Neither did the beekeeper, and he lived to regret not believing me.

Those are honey bees swarming.

We called a pest guy, who said not to worry, they would fly away on their own when they had rested. They weren't bothering us, so that's what we were going to do. But I mentioned it to Maia, who suggested that because honeybees are vanishing, that someone might want these bees. So I looked for a beekeeper.

(Little hint -- if you google "bee swarm removal" you get a lot of pest control guys. If you want a beekeeper, google your county "beekeeper association".)



This is Mike. He's a beekeeper. You can tell by his beekeeper suit.




This is Tom, my DH, helping Mike. Tom's not a beekeeper. You can tell because he has no beekeeper suit.




They cut that branch and got it into Mike's "traveling" bee box.




Mike is passionate about bees. He wanted as many of the stragglers as possible to make their way into the box, through the small opening on one side. He was going to come back in the evening, when it would be cooler and most of them would have gone in. But that evening he got tied up with something (bee-related, no doubt) and couldn't come until the next day. Before he could come it got warm, and suddenly the box looked like this:




The dark end of the box? Solid bees.

But by evening they had all gone back in again, except for a few stragglers. Mike sealed the box and put it in his truck. Bye-bye, bees! Work hard!

Sock-in-a-Day

I am nearly done with my Sock-in-a-Day Challenge sock. What, you want sock pix? After all those bee pix?

Next time. I'll just say this -- it's a good thing I made this sock for the Challenge, or I'm not sure I would ever have finished it. This yarn is in colors I like, but I really don't like the patterning. Good thing this is sock 2, and sock 1 is half done. No, wait -- how can that be? Oh, I get so confused.