I figure that every bee keeper has had a few good "rushes" in the past. When I first started with bees years ago the episode of the the first package installation was memorable,heartbeat racing, perspiring, excited and sealed up like a mummy in a cacoon, but the first time I plunged my hand into a swarm cluster to feel the buzz was exhilarating to say the least, "I felt alive". What was your most memorable "rush"?
Before I got my Golden Bee bee suit I used the old square veil and coveralls. I had a prime swarm about fourteen foot up in a Hedge tree (Osage Orange). Taking a rope to secure the rickity ladder to a fence post twenty foot away, I made my way up the ten foot step ladder with a cardboard MDA nuc box.
The limb the swarm was on was still overhead and too hard for my pruning shears so I decided to slap the limb and jar the bees off and into the box I held against my chest. Not a bad plan, I have done it many times before, just not that high up on a very unstable ladder and with a swarm just barely in reach.
So I slap the limb, or tried to, being barely able to keep my balance I slapped it sideways. (Ooops!) The back side of the forked limb grabbed my veil and made a rather large opening and held it open while about four pounds of bees plopped inside of the veil!
This is about all the detail my embarrasment will allow me to share. I am amazed that they did not administer one sting, but the buzzing as they crawled into my ears was deafening!
With all the things that I have done with bees, I still have trouble handeling them on my head or face. I MUST do a bee beard one day.
My biggest rush involved a swarm 30 feet high,
a pair of ascenders (mountain climbing gear),
a chainsaw, and an unexpected need for a veil,
discovered far too late, AFTER starting to cut
the limb.
Need I mention that this was the first
"high swarm" from which I did not walk away?
Long story short, the branch fell to the ground.
I did not.
The bees fell straight into the box.
It was a big box, placed with the use of a
plum-bob, so this was mere gravity at work,
not a function of any great skill on my part.
The chainsaw stalled on the way down, as it had
a spring-loaded trigger throttle/choke, so it did
not hit the ground and propel itself across the
field as happens so often in cartoons.
The chainsaw also did not hit the box o bees.
Gravity is your friend.
Lotsa stings. Not enough to make me ill,
just enough to make me call it a day and
seek medical treatment in the form of a
bottle of single-malt.
It the best impression of Wiley E. Coyote
from the Roadrunner cartoons I ever want to
attempt.
For all subsequent high swarms, I call the cable
company, and borrow the use of a bucket truck
for 10 minutes. If they can't come, I walk away.
I think my greatest rush would have to be the following:
The year I started keeping my very own bees, was the year my first neice was born. I got the idea of giving each child a jar of honey that was produced the year they were born (they can save it until they are elderly, continuely sampling it to remember their Uncle Coyote). With only two neices, I've been able to keep up quite well so far. However, the mom told me that (instead of the traditional One year) she was advised to wait until the baby was two years old before letting her have honey. So I had to wait as well. It was a long two years. But the rush finally came when I was able to "fix" the tradition by giving her the first taste of honey accompanied with an admonishment from my faith: "Butter and honey shall you eat that you might know to choose the good and dispise the evil." At her birth, I dedicated myself to guiding her in wise choices, and providing her with her own jar of chemical-free, raw honey not only fulfills the proverb, but also my commitment to her.
My wife told me that a swarm was in a dwarf apple tree about 10 feet from one of our hives. I took a look and found a large swarm about 4 feet off of the ground.
This looked easy, so I went to get an empty box. As I walked back, I watched as they flew up into a large fir tree. They were about 7 feet from the trunk. My extension ladder wouldn't reach the limb that they were on so I backed my pickup up to the tree and put the base of the ladder into the bed.
I could just reach where the limb came out from the trunk. Unfortunately the bees were about 2-3 feet farther than I could reach.
This is where things started to go downhill. I "reasoned" that I could slowly saw on the 4" diameter limb (about 15' long) and it would gently pivot down on the remaining uncut wood and I could reach the bees. It now started raining.
I got a pruning saw and got about 1" into the limb when, with the sound of a gunshot, the limb popped of, hit me in the head knocking off hat and veil, hit the ladder on the way down and ended up in the bed of the pickup.
Bees were everywhere. On me, all the way down the ladder, in the pickup bed and a couple even in the box. I didn't use a plumbbob like Jim. How I didn't fall, I will never know.
I eventually got most of the bees into the box in the rain. I left the entrance open for the remaining bees. About 45 minutes later I looked out the window to watch them all pour out of the box and fly off into the sunset.
When my neighbor Andy came knocking on my front door saying that my truck was on fire. I said,
"No, that's just the smoker." He said, " No Dave, I SEE FLAMES!"
At 14, (55 years ago and I still remember it)I placed a young hive on the back of an abandoned wagon of the horse drawn type. Unknown to this poor child was the fact that the front wheels weren't sttached. This resulted in a sort of a teeter-totter with the bees on one end. To work them I would climb up next to them and sit on the upended cover. As the summer drew on the hive got heavier with honey. I was eating 8 eggs for breakfast and so did I. All my bees at that time were from feral swams and mean as h*&l.
One fine summer day science decided that the weight was just right and the wagon upended. In a flash I and the entire hive hit the dirt. The hive broke apart and the air filled with a mighty roar. The bees took umbrage at this treatment and looked around for anything that needed stinging. The only thing in sight was a young farmboy moving so fast he was a blur. I crossed a swamp and never got my boots wet. AH, the good old days!
One was a swarm from my hive i followed.They went in a tree across the road.so i am thinking they are not so high.I put 2 2x2s together and put a 5gallon bucket on the end.As Luck goes the 2x2 pole was still short.so i was on my tip toes arms out right below the cluster.I gave a heave to knock the bees loose and that i did,the bucket glanced off a limb and i missed.All the bees came down on my head.Lucky i had put the veil on. Not a sting just had to go back to the house and get clean shorts and try again.2 good things happend that evening I did get the swarm and i still have the pole lol.
The other is my first hot have very hot.I did not even get the outer cover off and i could not see from all the bees on my head.They followed me 200 yards from the hive.
Bob
Got up early one morning to work my hives. Threw on my trackpants, no socks, and a T-shirt. So I'm out in my backyard (I live in a subdivision)working my bees, and I can feel something crawling inside my pants......... getting closer and closer to my .....ummm....well, getting close to a sensitive area..... I panicked when I felt buzzing between my legs, and pulled my pants down to reveal my bare ass to the neighbourhood....I had forgotten to put on my underwear. So picture me dancing around my backyard with my pants around my ankles, and xxxxx to the wind! I only hope my neighbours kids weren't looking!!
coyote My lady friend was with me on here first swarm catch and she said the same thing wish she had the vidio going.Now i want to hear one from you lol.
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