I don’t tend to worry about something bad happening to me and causing untold trauma to those around me. My lack of worry is exactly why I’m 20 feet up a ladder wearing pants that need hemming and sandals, leaning uncomfortably far to my right, scooping handfuls of bees off the trunk of a cedar tree, and plopping them unceremoniously into a Tupperware container. Their slight, hairy bodies feel soft against my hand as I try to gently sweep them free of the almond shape they have formed around a branch and each other. The tall metal ladder protests my movements with a metal groan/squeak as the crossbar digs into my upper shins. I’m trying to hold on with my legs and manoeuvre with my hands, pushing my hair back out of my eyes through my bee veil and am only partially successful. It’s hot enough that some of the hair sticks to the sweat on my forehead, which, it turns out, is handy for trapping hair and frees my vision. I fall into a rhythm: spray bees with sugar water to keep them from flying away, hang spray bottle on branch to my right, scoop top layer of bees off the swarm cluster and try to get them into the container. Then I pick up spray bottle again to spray the bees in the container to try to coax them to not fly off while I unceremoniously dump more of their sisters in with them, hook spray bottle back to the branch. After I do this a few times, I take the long trip down the ladder to empty the container into the new hive box located below me.
on swarm season
on swarm season
on swarm season
I don’t tend to worry about something bad happening to me and causing untold trauma to those around me. My lack of worry is exactly why I’m 20 feet up a ladder wearing pants that need hemming and sandals, leaning uncomfortably far to my right, scooping handfuls of bees off the trunk of a cedar tree, and plopping them unceremoniously into a Tupperware container. Their slight, hairy bodies feel soft against my hand as I try to gently sweep them free of the almond shape they have formed around a branch and each other. The tall metal ladder protests my movements with a metal groan/squeak as the crossbar digs into my upper shins. I’m trying to hold on with my legs and manoeuvre with my hands, pushing my hair back out of my eyes through my bee veil and am only partially successful. It’s hot enough that some of the hair sticks to the sweat on my forehead, which, it turns out, is handy for trapping hair and frees my vision. I fall into a rhythm: spray bees with sugar water to keep them from flying away, hang spray bottle on branch to my right, scoop top layer of bees off the swarm cluster and try to get them into the container. Then I pick up spray bottle again to spray the bees in the container to try to coax them to not fly off while I unceremoniously dump more of their sisters in with them, hook spray bottle back to the branch. After I do this a few times, I take the long trip down the ladder to empty the container into the new hive box located below me.