In which our hero relates a couple of tales of helping with downed trees and with swarming bees.
Tree Down!
A week ago, we had a couple of tornados that touched down in Vicksburg, and massive trees came down.
Any time trees are downed, I get a call or two, asking for help. This event was no different.
One call came from a lady who is a master gardener. A tree had blown down next to her house, and bees were all over. By the time I was on the scene, the bees had taken off for some less-exposed homesteading. Broken comb was all over the ground, but the bees had totally sucked all of the goodie out before moving on. They were gone, leaving no forwarding address. So until I get a call from somewhere else in the neighborhood, I won’t know where they ended up.
The other ‘tree down’ was a little different, and ended up with a shattered wheelbarrow as a result.
Larry Lewis is amazing. He has not only done the timber work that we spent the morning doing – and has done it for decades – he also has harvested wild honey from trees since he was a boy. So he has deep knowledge into how the bees and the trees interact.
We looked at the infrared readout, and the walls of wood were too thick to ‘see’ the heat.
So how do you operate blindly with bees?
Answer: Very carefully.
I stuffed the hole full of steel wool, trapping the bees inside the log. Larry picked up the chainsaw and made a cut just beyond where we thought the bees’ home ended. And then, halfway through, hollered at me that he was feeling the softer bite in the center that might have indicated that we guessed wrong. Fifteen seconds later, the first cut was complete, and I stood at the ready, prepared to cover the end of the log if the void where the bees were had been exposed.
And breathed a sigh of relief when it was not. The center of the tree was very pulpy, where water had started to rot away the interior, but there was no opening for the bees to escape. Cut two, same thing.
Now we have a monster log to put in the back of the truck. The tractor swings it over to my truck….
… and Larry begins to trim pieces of the log at the ends.
Guys, most of my stories put me securely in the role of hero. This is not that story. The guy is amazing with a chainsaw, and in a matter of seconds, he has swung the much reduced log into the back of my truck, and I am on my way.
Then I got to the house. Alone.
What looked like a big log on the back of my truck is now a monster. It is 75 yards from where I want it to be. I can’t lift the thing, let alone carry it and put it in place.
I grab the wheelbarrow and set it in place, and start to lever it off the truck bed. 450 pounds of log shifts suddenly, and lands on the front of the wheelbarrow, ripping my hands free and then smacking me in the chest with the other side of the log, as I frantically try to keep everything both upright and away from me. I hear a SNAP as the wheelbarrow tray cracks.
(Enter Kathe, stage right, phone in hand): “Do you want me to take some pictures?”
<<The next few minutes are deleted from the record. And photos mercifully fail to document the scene.>>
Eventually, I heave the log and the broken wheelbarrow into place, and lift the log into a vertical position, approximating the original orientation. The bees, winded and disoriented from their journey, do not fight me when I remove the steel wool, releasing them. Eventually, they move around a bit.
Eventually, my plan is to move them to another box – forcing them to choose a different home. That approach has been a hit-or-miss proposition in previous iterations, but hope springs eternal.
Fighting the swarm
So I don’t have any idea where they came from. I assume one of the hives in my yard reproduced while I wasn’t looking, but I came back from the first of my removals on Saturday to a vortex of bees swirling around a central point in my yard. A swarm.
Beekeepers don’t like for their bees to swarm. It means that they are reducing the productivity of your hives. It is as if another company just hired away half to two-thirds of your labor force. You can technically still create honey, but there is efficiency when the numbers of workers are doubled or tripled. Take them away, and the production rate goes way down.
But there is no way to stop the bees from swarming once they have started. Best thing to do is capture them and put them in a box.
Problem. I have been doing so many removals that I am out of boxes. I simply don’t have any to spare. But I have friends who have been wanting to get free-bees, and I can provide them with one. Courtney Tuminello came with two of her kids and her dad – Bill Willoughby – to capture the swarm. After much discussion and a couple of weird brushing attempts, I climbed up the ladder and shook the branch, and we all watched in fascination as the vortex reversed and the bees marched into the box.
A few hours later, they came by to pick up the prize, and whisked them away to their new bee digs, setting them into an empty box and giving them a happy place to shine.
This weekend will hold a few more interesting bee activities – I have a friend who has been asking me questions as he prepares for getting hives of his own, and another friend is leaving town and is needing to sell off her boxes and equipment. Kismet! (Or maybe serendipity… I never can tell when it is one or the other).
I will be helping with the transaction, and will be involved in the moving.
About the same time, I got an email from someone who kept bees before, and whose equipment had been occupied by squatters.
“My late husband and I raised bees and I still have at least one active hive. They swarmed into a box I had stored under a lean-to. Would you be interested? They need a good home. I can’t tend to them.”
Serendipity doodah!
This season has been crazy for swarms, there is no doubt. But as long as the girls keep reproducing, I will keep filling up boxes and combining swarms and trying to find homes for everybody. Because everybeebody needs a home.
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