We have had a lot of rain.... A LOT of rain. and it's kept the bees cooped up. The first nice day we had a while back, I inspected hives. I noticed that one of the packages I installed in April had exploded and was building swarm cells.. I moved several of those cells into a hive that had recently lost their queen and began to destroy the rest.
As I squished the rest I gave the girls a pep talk.. "There is no need for this girls, it's only the rain keeping you penned up. It'll end soon and you'll be able to get out more. Here, I'll give you another box." Well, somewhere between the squishing and preaching.... I missed a cell... and it doesn't matter how much additional space you give them, if you miss a cell ~ they're going to swarm.
And swarm they did...
On Monday, while I was fighting a nasty cold.
I walked to the bee yard to let the sun soak into my bones and it was then that I spotted them, hanging at the top of an Oak tree some fifty feet or better in the air. Why couldn't they have chosen a cedar? I've caught swarms out of tall cedars before.. their branches are so dense that when you cut it, the tree rolls down kinda slow like and you collect your swarm and go home..
Not so with an Oak.. they fall, well, they fall hard like a mighty Oak tree... blah! The first tree hit the ground and I wade into the branches, praying I hadn't hurt the bees too bad... I find them just as the queen takes off flying and am caught in a whirlwind of bees (It was actually kinda cool at the moment)
up...
up...
up...
and yes, still..... UP
she went to the top of the next Oak.....really?.....crank up the chain saw ... down it comes.... up she goes..... I can't get into her fast enough and she's not about to wait so we keep repeating the same steps over and over. She got so good at it, I swear, she would fly and be in the next tree before the last one hit the ground... With no short trees in sight, she mocks me all afternoon.
About the time enough timber has been cut to keep us warm for the next three winters, Shane comes home from work and drives out to the bee yard... In a single instant the poor man is faced with.....
1) His wife, slinging snot and slightly delirious thanks to her head cold,
2) She is bawling because she is ticked (and that did nothing to help her snot slinging)
3) The dead remains of at least six or seven huge, oak trees. His wife responsible for their murder.
4) piles of branches and bark, cut away from the carcasses in failed attempts to reach the swarm before it flies again.
And the only explanation he is given is a finger pointed to the skyline, far above our heads where there hangs one defiant bundle of bees...
So no one should be surprised when he says......"WOMAN!" ...uhh.... yeah, I don't think we really need to go into all that he said, it was a shock to his system after all.....I'll just paraphrase this next part.
..........I am not allowed to cut down ANY more trees..........
And the bees will be allowed to go. I went home. I went to bed. But not before I hung a swarm trap, set up an empty hive and drenched the entire mess in Lemon grass oil.. The forest smelled like it had been properly dusted at any rate.
Tuesday morning I was in the bee yard bright and early. They were still there hanging in the tree. They hung there all day. I know this because I did too. When the boys got home from work, I had Zac go back and help me clean up my mess of ladders and boxes and such.
While we were back there the girls left.
I called Shane to let him know. He replied "Good, now you can quit staring at them, Shell, you're going to make yourself nuts." He has such deep sympathy for me.
I told Zachary, with 30 acres of timber that we wouldn't find them this summer but while he was hunting this fall, after the leaves were gone, to keep his eyes open and we could possibly cut them out next Spring.
Little did I know...
As we returned home, Cody asked me if I knew where they went?
No...
"Come here, mom."
He leads me to my front yard, and there happily humming is my swarm gathering around a hole way, way up in another oak tree. All that timber and she brings it to my front yard.
She mocks me yet.
I sit here this morning, at the base of that tree looking skyward, like I have done for the past three days. She and her ladies are inside this tree, setting up house like her ancestors have done for the past six thousand years....... maybe she and I can just call a truce..... after all, I might enjoy having a mile high hive... I don't need anymore firewood, and I am grounded from the chainsaw......
So here's to a heart that refused to be tamed.
and Girl, I'll be looking for you next swarm season...
or should I say......
I'll catch ya later.
