First Swarm Catch

I was a new beekeeper. I had barely gotten my first hive, enthusiastically attended a handful of meetings of our local bee club meetings, and was following the Washington State Beekeeping course like a Bible. I had two old time beekeeping mentors. One a Polish man who learned beekeeping as a foster child of WWII, living in the countryside with his brother. The other a robust family man part of a family of beekeepers who sold hives in our area. With their support I jumped to the call: My First Swarm!

It was a hot day on the Olympic Peninsula, and the call was an hour away. i took the callas seriously as an emergency rescue and I was as nervous as a colt. I drove at top speed rehearsing in my mind how I was going to attempt this after never seeing a swarm in real life, no internet research, just a few book descriptions, some pep talks from my mentors and the directions to the swarm site written on the back of an envelope.

The swarm had found its way to the center of a retirement mobile homepPark. A semi-assisted living complex of neat and most likely chemically enhanced lawns. The swarm had found a perfect little peach tree and clustered on a slender branch just over my head. These darlings had found the perfect place for this short beekeeper (with no ladder.)

My big idea was to wrap the swarm in a pillowcase and put it in a cardboard box punched with holes for ventilation. I was prepared! Duct tape, pillowcase and box!

When I arrived, a small group had gathered. Every person with some sort of prop device: walkers, canes and wheel chairs. One bold gentleman (with a walker) proudly brought me just shy of 20 feet away from the tree and pointed out the sweet litttle swarm, a vision! I could also see, in the neighboring homes around this yard, people had gathered and were smiling behind windows and sliding glass doors. They gave me optimistic thumbs ups! I noticed also that the bravest (and fastest) were lined up along the nice little cement walkway that would itself through the park. They smiled patiently and expectantly and gave me little waves.

As I had no idea what the bees would actually DO when I approached them I was quite grateful that the spectators were safely behind glass and on the paved walkways (for quick get-away.)

As the gentleman who showed me the hive (wearing a big raincoat, basball hat and mosquito net) turned and made his way to the closest mobile home I secured my veil and my snow white gloves, tucked my pants into my boots, waved at the folks like an astronaut entering the space shuttle and set to work.

They were Italian bees I remember. Golden, sweet and clustered like fat autumn grapes. I slipped the pillowcase around the hive and of course hundreds of bees made a last dash out, which for some reason surprised me. Full of chutzpah and remembering the only thing I could remember which was to whump! the branch and dislodge the swarm into the pillowcase. So I did and a twig caught the pillowcase and it sligshotted above the swarm As I jumped away I saw all the old folks speed away like geese honking off a flat lake with no wind. Cutains dropped, blinds swished as the people inside the houses retreated as well. This was good because for several minutes I got to re-think my threadbare plan. Fortunately, as the spectators slowly returned to their stations I saw that the bees were actually reclustering in the repositioned and partially taped closed pillowcase (silent prayer). It took awhile, but eventually most of them (thank goodness, tiny swarm) found their way in and I taped it closed around the branch and whumped it again, managing to keep the majority of them in place. I hustled back to my subaru with the viewers parting like the red sea (in slow motion) and laid the pillowcase open in the box (yes, the bees are already making their way out of the box) and singlehandedly with gloves on duct taped the box together, taped my glove to the box, got tape stuck to my veil and taped some bees to stuff (sorry, no really I am sorry bees!) Not on purpose, accidentally!

After hasty good byes, a round of cheers and a can of sprite-to-go I made my way back to the highway with my veil on (for obvious reasons.)

So you know those holes I punched in the box with a screwdriver? You know, for ventilation? The kind of holes that would be perfect if a cat or a squirrel was in the box? Well, for the bees, the box became a seive. They began to pour out of the box and cover the windows of my subaru and like a lava lamp or oil slick made fantastic images on every windowed surface of the car. (Every one of them.)

I am an hour away from home.

Ahead of me is road work. FAR ahead of me, in front of at least four miles of inching cars.

It is hot out.

My window has to be rolled down a bit because it is hotter in the car!

Neighbors on the roadway begin to register looks of horror as they realize, stuck in traffic with them is an open subaru driven by a veiled woman and boiling with bees!

I take the shoulder.

Spitting gravel and dust I drive right up to the cops and flaggers and tar trucks and jackhammers. The cops look startled and snap to attention, the flagger, the other cars...

I unroll my window low enough to stick my head out and I shout "BEES!"

They all freeze at once and the one closest to me says "GO! GO! GO!" and they all start madly flagging and yelling and I squeak in between cars until I am free!

Truth be told the rest of the drive was filled with a fog shame and mortification compounded by the din of buzzing bees. I received a serious lecture from them, but no stings.

An hour later I get the bees home, leave them to cluster in the box (I hope) go take a shower to wash off road dust and embarrassment. When I am done I trepidationsly return to the box finding the bees covering most of the inside of the box and fanning their wings so frantically it looks like it might lift off! I take the cardboard box to the waiting hive box, turn it upside down and pour it like sticky flying mexican jumping beans into the brand new plastic framed langstroth hive.

Finished I slunk back into my house after a brief sob of "sorries" to these darling girls.

They left the next day.

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