Midnight Bees

I got a call yesterday afternoon at about 5:30. My buddie's wife had seen a swarm of bees across the street from the their house (likely from one of our three langs in his back yard).

I've been waiting for this moment for over two months now. I've kept a small 9-bar TBH in my trunk all the time so I'd be ready when the call came.

When the call finally came, however, I was three hours away on work and no where near finished with the task at hand. It'd be at least another two hours before I could leave and then a three hour drive to get back home to where the swarm was.

He told me they were still flying and hadn't settled on anything so he'd keep an eye on them. He also told me that he didn't think they'd go far as it was just starting to lightly rain.

I had bees on the brain but went back to work. He texted me a while later to let me know that the bees had finally settled down and that they were now on the ground. I was worried that they might be queenless. I couldn't figure out why they'd bee on the ground with plenty of trees in the area. I'd heard of swarms losing their queen and becoming disoriented and "lost".

By the time I got home and over to his house it was midnight... and raining steady. The temperature was in the 50's. It would have only been worse if it were windy. I guess I can be grateful for that. We grabbed the flashlights and headed up the hill. The girls were in an area of tall grass balled up on a culvert in a ditch. They weren't even inside the culvert but rather balled up on the end of it and on a water gate to the side, out in the open and in the rain. They were completely drenched. I'd never seen such a sorry bunch of bees. At first glance they weren't even moving. I had to look close to determine that they were even alive.

Nearby and just up the hill, there was a large cottonwood tree with many low branches that, in my mind, would have made a much more suitable swarm site. I wonder if the scouts that chose the culvert were fired.

If the situation wasn't sorry enough, I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and did not have my veil. I did however borrow a pair of gloves from my buddy.

I attempted to take a photo with my camera phone and the light from a flashlight but it didn't turn out very well (see photos). I then used my digital camera but without a working flash, it didn't turn out much better. As bad as the photos are though, they still show the sorry state of things.

I set up the TBH next to the ditch and went to work. Holding the flashlight in my teeth, I placed a piece of curled up cardboard into the culvert under the bees and began brushing them off the pipe and onto the cardboard, dumping the cardboard into the TBH about half a dozen times. I then was grabbing wet handfuls of bees from here and there and dropping them into the TBH. I cleaned up as many as I could (some had fallen into the ditch) but many were in the mud and tall grass and I could not get them. I placed the TBH as close to the ditch as I dared and covered it and the surrounding area with some pieces of cardboard to keep the rain off the remaining girls, hoping that they would find their way into the TBH.

After about twenty minutes, it was clear that the bees in the mud and grass were not interested in moving at all. I picked up a few more small clumps that I could reach, and packed things up hoping that I had the queen. I placed the hive in my trunk and drove it about 5 miles to a small farm where I had arranged permission to place the bees. It was now 1:00 am and still raining.

I set up the hive on a pallet that I had set as visibly level as I could in the dark and the wet. Not having a proper roof, I covered the top with an aluminum sheet (from the printshop) and placed a cinder block from the farm on top to hold the sheet in place.

I checked on the hive at about 7:00 am this morning and they were fanning at the entrance (a good sign). I took another couple of pictures and left them there to see what they do. I won't be able to return to check on them for three more days. I'll take one of my 42" TBH to transfer them into next week sometime.

So... I hived swarm of bees at midnight, in the cold and rain in shorts and without my veil and I only got 2 stings. Both stings are on my left leg (about an inch apart). They must have crawled up my bare leg out of the wet grass as I worked. Not a bad price to pay though, if the bees survive.