Last night, as Ralph & Sally left our house and started down the sidewalk at dusk, Jerry saw LOTS of things flying in the air ahead of them, and cautioned them to stop. Its good they did...for on a low branch of a tree in our neighbor's yard just beside our garage was a huge beehive! Jerry called the police, who gave him the phone number for Bee Busters Inc. He arrived soon after, but by now it was totally dark outside. Tim estimated the hive to be the size of a football. Did you know that it takes 3500-4500 bees to weigh a pound, and this hive was probably 3 1/2-4 pounds? And further, it was not there when I walked over to my neighbors about noon. Those little rascals move fast! The Bee Buster (who turned out to be Tim, a member of our church family, and someone we have known for years) donned his uniform, and prepared a large white bucket (with a tight-fitting lid!) by placing some sticks and twigs in it. If he doesn't do that, to provide some airspace, some of the bees will die by being crushed in the confined bucket. He was glad it was night, because the bees don't like to fly in the dark, so I'm glad I didn't wait until this morning to call. He walked up to the hive, held the bucket up under it, shook the branch while pressing down on the hive, put the lid on it securely, and the job was over. The bees would then be on their way to a new location in the country. Tim told us that in the daylight we would be able to see white on the branch where they were beginning to build a honeycomb..but unfortunately, there were still a few bees who got left behind buzzing around this morning, and we decided it was not prudent to walk up for a closer look. But I think I'll go check it out now.....
2 comments:
Very cool, mom!! I'm so glad you had the presence of mind to take pics. What a memory!!
Wow!
We lay claim to the first Africanized bees found in Midland. For much of the Spring, there was a huge hive on a shed at the corner of (what was then) Tim Thompson's house. Children had walked by it for weeks without incident. Suddenly one summer day bees started flying everywhere! We rushed people from the park across the street into our house and called the police. They blocked off the neighborhood and called a beekeeper, who warned everyone to stay inside for a couple of hours. Eventually the bees were cleared out and identified as the dread (and new to us) African strain. It was quite a sight to see the bee man walking down the street, his head double-helmeted by both his uniform and a huge swarm of attacking bees.
Mary Garay
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