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  • GA

On Sunday, I helped rescue a honeybee swarm (bees that have left their hive to find a new home). Earlier that day, a friend texted me a photo asking, “These aren’t honeybees, are they?” She had found a bee swarm in a tree by her house and was worried the property owner might spray them. We looked on the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association website, where we found the Swarm List, a list of people who are willing to come get bee swarms.

We found a guy who was very interested in collecting them, and we agreed to help him do it. We waited until late at night, when it was totally dark and the temperature had dropped and we knew the bees would be sleeping.

Thousands of bees were huddled in a giant ball around the queen; their weight had pulled the branch down. It happened very quickly: We put on our bee suits and set up a ladder, then our guy climbed up and held the branch while we used a pole pruner to cut the branch off with the bee ball intact. I thought the bees were going to be really mad when we started messing around, but they were calm. We even got to take a good up-close look before he put them in a plastic tub to take them safely back to their new hive.

Bees swarm for all sorts of reasons; they are devious little creatures. I hope my bees don’t decide to take off.

So if you see a honeybee swarm, now you know what to do!