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Our First Bee Swarm

Usually, the honeybees in our back yard are housed in a bee hive.  They are very well behaved and work hard without much ado.



However, sometimes they get an itch to high tail it out of the hive and search for greener grass.  When they do, they meet for an organizational meeting at a nearby hangout until they can make some plans. 



When they do this, it's called a swarm.  It's a sight to behold.  This was our first.  We're not sure if these bees were from our hive or not.  I can't imagine that all of these bees could have fit in our hive and besides, our hive is still full of bees. 

We called a beekeeper from the local bee guild and she came out and marveled at the size of the swarm (the biggest she'd ever seen) and then promptly got to work removing the swarm.



She simply brushed off the bees and put them into a special bee bucket.  Once the queen was in the bucket, all of the bees followed her in there and that was that.  Hubs had a great time learning from a pro.   We'll be purchasing another hive set up so that next time this happens, we'll be able to start a new hive to make more honey.  

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Comments

  1. JennyMarch 8, 2012 at 11:00 PM

    That's interesting. I think bees are fascinating, but I must admit I'm a little squeemish about them. I'm afraid of getting stung. I guess I'm a big baby when it comes to bees. But they are fascinating!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sheri OMarch 9, 2012 at 12:07 AM

    Wow, that is incredible! I've never seen anything like that. It looked huge! What a shock to walk out your back door and see those bees just hanging out - waiting. . .
    Yikes! I'd be running back inside!
    Sheri O.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TiffanyMarch 9, 2012 at 9:43 PM

    That is so cool!

    ReplyDelete

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