When I got back from my trip to Florida Charley called to let me know that he had seen a swarm at Church and 30th fly up into a tree as he was walking home from work. Could we get over there right now? Peter and I threw some tools and an empty box in my truck and met Charley at the corner. There they were, up in a pretty tall ficus tree, a nice big swarm.
Charley climbed up with a rope and some loppers. He swung the rope over a higher branch and then tied it to the branch the bees were clustered on while Peter and I set up the box and ladder below. He cut the branch and slowly lowered the branch, swarm and all, down to me on the ladder. Then I placed the branch on the waiting box and we watched the bees flood into the frames.
There was some question about whether we got the queen or not because a number of the bees flew right back up into the tree and settled back into a cluster. Others that had been knocked off the branch on the way down filed in an orderly fashion right into the front entrance to their new home.
Everything was going well and we thought we had about another 15 minutes to wrap things up. That's when the school buses pulled up. It was 3pm and school was out. All I could think was that some poor kid was going to get stung by accident and we would all get in trouble for collecting the swarm and causing a hazard.
There were a few nervous moments with the bus drivers but the kids got loaded on with no problems and off they went. The bees, however, were not so cooperative. There was still a bunch of them up in the tree so Charley climbed back in and shook them out. They landed all over the sidewalk and on the back of my truck.
The bus kept going by every few minutes with the windows down and gaping wide-eyed passengers staring at our project. Finally, we got most of the bees in the box and loaded them into my truck and carried them home to our apiary. It is a nice sized swarm and we are excited for a new addition.
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