[Cirlonde]

We had a rather over-exciting afternoon at my house yesterday! I took Chloe out at about 1pm to do her business and I heard this pretty loud whirring noise. I just put it off as lawn mowers in the distance. As Chloe finished up and we walked away, I glanced around and there were literally thousands of bees flying in a vertical, blurred square about ten feet away from me. It was at least six feet long by three feet tall and was centered in front of a large cedar tree. I have never seen so many bees!

Now, we've complained once about the bees that appear to be living in our neighbor's wall but were told by the landlord that bees "are just a problem" around here and they've never been able to successfully get rid of them. I have my doubts about how hard they've tried. So since I knew the landlord wasn't going to do anything, I started researching bees for myself. Turns out, that about this time of the year bees that are overcrowding the hive follow a newly produced queen to a new hive. While they are waiting on little scout bees to determine the location of the new home, the remaining bees form this ball of solid bees and hang from a tree or fence post. Once the scouts find a good spot, they return to the main bunch and lead them home. The website I found suggested that if you see one of these "swarms" you should contact a local beekeeper. Since these swarms are waiting on a new home to be found for them, it's the perfect time for a beekeeper to relocate them to one of his hives. So...I set out to find a beekeeper in our area.

Now, when I was outside, I hadn't noticed any football shaped swarm of bees; just the floating "wall". But I still wanted rid of the bees so I figured it couldn't hurt to look around. I absolutely couldn't believe it, but I found a guy almost right away. When my husband got home, he and I walked out together to where I'd seen the bees and they were GONE! All but a handful. My husband kept looking though, and sure enough!! All those bees had formed into this "swarm" I'd read about and were hanging from a low branch on the cedar tree. The bees were so heavy that they had pulled the branch nearly to the ground. So my husband immediately called the guy whose info I'd found and he came out right away. I bet he showed up in fifteen minutes. He said they were "just beautiful" and gathered them into a plastic container wearing nothing but a bee hat, t-shirt and shorts. He was CRAZY!! And he didn't charge us anything!

Due to the size, if you want to see pictures you'll have to check them out on my Picasa photo album here: Picasa Web Albums - Chelsey - Bees. If I make them small enough to attach, you won't be able to see the bees.
-C