RosanneHood
Unregistered User
(5/19/01 4:20 pm) Reply
Swarms with a difference
Each swarm I have ever caught has been different. Different places, different circumstances, varying degrees of difficulty in getting vastly different numbers of bees into a box. Some peoples ideas of what constitutes huge numbers of bees have been highly overstated, when I have arrived to find a thimbleful of bees clustered on a grass blade. But the lady who rang in a bit of a panic one morning, describing a swarm as big as football hanging on the lemon tree by her clothesline satisfied me that a trip from where I live out towards Captains Flat, into Calwell would be worth it. I packed all my swarm catching gear in the car and was off.
It took about 45 minutes to get to Calwell, and another 15 of trying to find her address. When I finally found the house, the lady was not going to come outside on any condition, and shouted directions at me through windows. She had two young children who would dearly have loved to come out and watch what was happening, but they were obliged to keep their fearful mother company behind locked doors and shut windows.
Indeed it was a very big swarm. It had almost decimated the young lemon tree with its trunk bent almost to snapping point from the huge clump of quiet bees clustered there. With a bit of difficulty, given that the bottom of the swarm was almost on the ground, I gently eased my cardboard box underneath and righted it, meaning now that the swarm was mostly already inside the box. I pulled the trunk of the lemon tree back slightly, then flexed it quickly backwards and forwards, and the whole swarm fell into the box.
Not until the box was taped shut and there was clearly not a bee in sight, did the lady and her children come out. She thanked me profusely for collecting the bees, and we said goodbye. I brought the bees home and hived them in a new box. They moved in with great alacrity, and all was well.
The next day when the phone rang, I was not surprised, as it rang daily for swarms. But I WAS surprised to find it was the lady from Calwell again.
"The bees," she said, "they've all come back."
"No they haven't," I replied, "They are all here!" I asked her to wait while I nipped out to have a look. Most certainly they were all in their new home, those that weren't already out working and bringing pollen back.
Well, apparently there was a new swarm on the lemon tree again. So would I get it?
It was really a long way from home, but at least I now knew where to go. She greeted me like a knight in shining armour and allowed the children to stand on the porch and watch as I repeated yesterday's antics on a swarm almost as big and boxed the lot of them with no bother. The children put their ears up to the side of the box to listen to the buzzing, and asked me lots of questions about why bees kept landing on their lemon tree.
There were a few big old trees in the vicinity, though none appeared to be housing bees. I peered over all the neighbouring fences, but could find no back yard bee hives. I explained to Kathy (we were on first name basis now!) that I guessed she'd just been unlucky to get two swarms, a day apart, on the one and only tree in her otherwise bare back yard. It was a fluke!
These new bees moved cheerfully into another hive box, and later that night, I put their box on top of the other Calwell bees, separated by newspaper, and combined them. I now had a big new hive of bees, and next morning they were all working hard to build up supplies.
I really didn't need any more swarms now, I had seven hives and it was a lot for me to manage on my own as I get no help from a bee-allergic husband. Besides I was getting sick of driving so far every day. So when the phone rang again the next day, I was going to say I was not available.
"Hi Rosanne! You won't believe this. It's Kathy again."
"What won't I believe, Kathy?"
"Well, either the bees are back, or, you guessed it.. there's another swarm on the lemon tree."
"You're right, I don't believe it!"
"I'm really sorry to have to ring you again, but you know, for the sake of the kids, would you mind coming to get this one too?"
"Be there in 45 minutes," I replied, and sighed.
I grabbed a jar of honey as I collected all my stuff.
It was a slightly smaller swarm, but a reasonably sized one all the same. The procedure for catching swarms on this lemon tree was becoming so familiar now, that the children were allowed to come right out in the yard, and watch, asking me hundreds of questions about how many bees there were, how old the bees were, and why they were all hanging onto each other. Kathy watched too, from the porch. I suggested she got the hang of what was involved, so she could do it herself! She said she would never be able to do it, but the kids said they could.
Their eyes lit up when I gave them the honey! "Did these bees make this honey?" they asked, patting the buzzing box in the back of the car. " Will you come back tomorrow and catch some more bees?"
I told them that I sincerely hoped that they had run out of bees by now so I could have a day off!
Kathy thanked me profusely, and said I'd be the first to know if any more swarms landed on her lemon tree. They all trooped back inside to have honey sandwiches for lunch.
The third box of Calwell bees ended up on top of the other two.
The next day I held my breath. Would the phone ring again, and would it be Kathy? But my luck was in. The lemon tree was spared. And I never got a call to Calwell again. But then I wasn't surprised. There can have been no bees left in Calwell to swarm that spring!
(Migrated by bindaree from an original posting in August 2000.)
Edited by: bindaree at: 5/20/01 8:47:54 pm
RosanneHood
Unregistered User
(5/19/01 4:26 pm) Reply
Swarms with a difference
It was quite early in my bee swarm catching days that I got a call late one afternoon from a fellow who seemed petrified. He told me that there was not just one, but three bee swarms in his back yard and the bees were so savage they were attacking anything and everything that moved. This I could not understand. Swarming bees are almost invariably extremely quiet and docile. As to bee swarms attacking things, it was a new one on me. Three of them? I could only come up with two boxes. I asked him if he could supply me with a box, and as he could, then I packed my gear, took my brand new bee suit, had to take one year old Edward with me as well as there was no where to leave him, and left. It was almost dark.
We lived in Mckellar then and luckily it was a nearby suburb as it was getting so gloomy. When I found the place, I parked in the drive, got out of the car and was immediately stung by a bee. This was alarming. I banged on the front door and it was opened enough to let me and Edward and all my gear get through, then firmly shut again. The fellow, who had clearly been stung many times on his arms, took me through to the back of the house and pointed out through the windows where three humungus swarms were hanging from low shrubs, including one on a rose bush. The air was quite thick with bees, and they sounded agitated. The dog was inside, chasing his tail and yelping. He had been stung too. Everyone in the house had been stung. No one seemed in danger of an allergic reaction, but it clearly was not safe outside. The fellow told me the swarms had been there for three days.
Through the gloom towards the back of the block, I saw what I recognised as bee hives. Very curious. "Excuse me," I said, but are these swarms YOUR bees?" I must say he looked very embarrassed. It transpired that his hives had become so savage he was scared of them. He had tried to catch the swarms but not having anywhere to put them, he had just put them back where they came from, getting stung excessively in doing so. This act had caused bee wars of a magnitude I had never seen before, nor since. It was a battleground in his back yard. And it seemed that he did not now want these bees at all. He didn't want any bees. He wanted me to catch the swarms and take them away while he figured how to get rid of the rest of them.
I told him that he would have to mind Edward because I was not going to, as usual, let him stand and watch. I donned my bee suit, made sure everything was done up, got the fellow to help me tape my wrists and ankles, and feeling rather like I was going to war, collected his box, as well as my two, and was let out the front door to make my way around that back alone.
I was bombarded by bees from start to finish. I could only presume they were the bees from the messed up hives. The swarms were reasonably docile and each was boxed with relative ease, except the continuous onslaught of vicious bees did stir the swarms up a bit and a few bees from the swarms took to the air and joined the fray as well. I was mightily glad that I had the full bee suit as this was not a job for any flimsy get up, and apart from the sting when I arrived, I suffered no more stings. But the continuous onslaught of bees was bothersome in the extreme.
There were four bee hives in the back yard. It seemed like an excessive amount of bee hives for someone who was clearly terrified of bees. Once I had my three buzzing boxes in the back of the car, I suggested to the fellow that if he couldn't find a brave person who wanted to take these hives and requeen them and if they were still savage in a few days and still attacking everything, then he had better call a pest extermination business. And I replied to his question that I was not the slightest bit interested in them myself.
By then it was pitch dark, so when I got home, the bees had to stay in their cardboard boxes until next day. I left the boxes on the lawn, slightly open, and the bees had happily accepted them as homes, starting to build comb already, before they got tipped out into hive boxes later in the day.
And those were in the days before it became acceptable to charge a fee for collecting swarms. But I always felt that I'd earned a fee for that job! Collecting a chap's swarms for him in his own back yard. In the dark! And that was the only swarm collecting I did where I ever got stung.
(Originally posted 13 February 2000. Migrated to the new forum by bindaree.) Edited by: bindaree at: 5/20/01 8:49:01 pm
RosanneHood
Unregistered User
(5/19/01 4:29 pm) Reply
Swarms with a difference
The phone rang. It was bee swarm time at around 10.00am on a warm spring morning.
"Hello? Can you catch bee swarms?"
"Well, yes. I can, and I do. What is it that you want?"
"I want a bee swarm taken away. The last two blokes who came here couldn't catch it."
Couldn't catch it? This sounded weird to me.
"So, do you think you can catch it?"
"Well, I most certainly expect so. I've had a lot of experience," I replied.
I asked for the address.
"The Lodge."
In my experience, a lodge was a fishing hut.
"Where is this lodge?" I asked.
"Well, I'll be! How long have you been living in Canberra?"
In the end, he had to explain it to me. It was the Lodge that at the time, Paul Keating was living in. The address was Adelaide Avenue. The bees were on the tennis court fence and they were stinging people playing tennis. I would need a ladder.
"I have no way to carry a ladder," I told him. "Surely the gardening section has a ladder?"
He guessed so.
I had to give him my car rego number and describe the car to him. I was to say at exactly what time I would turn up. I was to ask for my arrival to be reported to the Head Groundsman. I was to bring no one else with me. It all sounded very cloak and dagger.
When I got to the severely locked gates, I had to get out and press a bell to summon someone to let me in. They had obviously been primed to expect a lady swarm catcher this time, albeit a dishevelled looking one because you do not dress up to catch bees. I was let in through the gates and told where to drive to and park. The Head Groundsman was waiting for me with a frightfully rustic looking ladder. "Come with me," he said.
The bees were swarmed high above our heads on the tennis court fence. That was hard enough, but along this side of the fence was growing a tall, extremely prickly and scratchy hedge. The bees were on the mesh above the top of the hedge. It was a long way up in the air. Most definitely a ladder job, but the ladder looked insufficient!
I got myself geared up, grabbed my box, and asked the Groundsman to hold the ladder as I climbed it. There was a warning on the second step. It said "On no circumstances ever stand on the top step." Well, that was going to be just too bad. I reached up and propped the box on the top of the hedge, then making use of long arms (which possibly the earlier two gents hadn't had) reached out over the top of the hedge to grab the mesh. Hanging on for dear life, I made myself steady as I climbed up onto the top step of the ladder. In this precarious position I was almost just at an adequate height to push the box directly under the bees. But there was no way I could reach up above them to knock them down.
I climbed back down. "Have you got a rake?" I asked. The Groundsman went off to find one as a bunch of people trooped out onto the tennis court to start up a match.
Meanwhile, I had another idea. When the Groundsman came back with a rake, I got him to carry the ladder into the tennis court area. It strangely seemed to cause no interest whatsoever to the players that a person in a white moon suit was now climbing a ladder being held by a gardening type person at the side of the tennis court. Without the hedge to complicate things, from the top step of the ladder I was almost level with the bottom of the swarm. Now came a tricky manoeuvre. As I was holding onto the mesh with one hand to steady myself, I lifted up my other hand, pulled the mesh towards me as far as I could, then snapped it back to dislodge the bees, about half of which fell into the box.
So far so good. I nipped back down the ladder and we took it back around the outside of the fence by the hedge again, and this time I climbed up with the rake. From the top step, the rake was long enough in my long arms to get right up above the rest of the swarm, and with the prongs pointing outwards so as to not get caught in the mesh, I whisked the head of the rake down over the bees, and swept the majority of the rest of them into the box, which I then tilted on its side. I must say that having had to use both hands on the rake I was jolly glad that the obliging Groundsman was holding the ladder as it had rocked about in a rather terrifying manner during this procedure.
I left the box on the top of the hedge for a while and climbed down the ladder to chat to the Groundsman about how most of the rest of the bees would go into the box in the next half hour, after which I would shut it up and take it away. Any stray bees left may well be agitated for a while, but they would soon die. He went off to get cold drinks for both of us while I listened to a Keating child doing piano practice.
The Groundsman came back with iced lemonade and thanked me profusely! I had, he said, been so efficient. I asked him if the two previous swarm non catchers had been thwarted by lack of height. He said indeed that was mostly the case, although one fellow had succeeded in getting them into a box, but had dropped the box when coming down the ladder, resulting in tennis players getting stung and being quite aggravated. He asked if he could keep my name and phone number on file in case they had any more problems.
After a suitable delay, I climbed the ladder once more with a roll of tape. While the Groundsman held the ladder steady, I perched on the top step, reached up and shut the box, and taped it up. Now even if I dropped it, the bees would not fall out. I managed to descend with no incident, however, and thanked the Groundsman for his part in it all.
They can have had no more swarms at the Lodge while I was still a swarm catcher, because I got no more calls from them. But it was probably the most fascinating address I have ever been to, to catch bees! I could not tell if the bees had any political bent, they stung just as painfully as any of my others. And I must say, being not a tennis player, I had no idea that the game could be so riveting. Being dressed in a moon suit usually has the effect of causing interest. But not, it would seem, for the tennis players on the tennis court at the Lodge.
(Posted originally on 26 February 2000)
Edited by: bindaree at: 5/19/01 4:38:52 pm
at: 5/20/01 8:47:54 pm
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