Bee Swarm!

Around 5pm today, it was announced by the ranger that we had a very large swarm of bees next to one of the buildings at the Preserve. By the time I got out there with a camera, the swarm of bees had settled together on a tree branch next to a barrier for a young tree. Believe it or not, this photo of the swarm showed the bees finally settled down surrounding their Queen. Who it seemed, was the reason for the swarm as she decided to leave the hive and re-establish a new hive with all her bees giving chase to maintain the working colony under her command. The beekeeper estimated this swarm to be over 10,000 bees. 

The extras are a sequence of capturing the hive by hand and putting it in a transport box so someone could set it up as a working hive - as long as it was acceptable by the Queen. Photos are of the two people getting the bees off the branch, putting it into a box, and then placing it into a "sleeve" that will then be transported (in this case by car) to its new location. At one time I had quite a few bees on my clothes, head and hands - I did not get stung once!

This whole process took just slightly over an hour.

Enjoy!