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Thursday, May 14, 2015

All Abuzz

Thursday morning, May 14.

The bees are calling me.

Since 2001, I have wanted to keep bees.  One of my informants in Yucatan let me help 'castrar' his hive, and I have been hooked ever since.

A couple of years ago, a swarm took up residence in the column on the front of my house, and I loved it.  After a whole day of workstress, I would come home, step onto the front porch to check the mail, and feel the soothing hum of bees in my column.  Stress would just leak away. I would greet them, say hello, and watch the comings and goings for just a few minutes.

I know that my reaction is atypical.  But I always have nervous energy running through me..... except when I am around bees. And then my heart rate drops, my breathing slows, and my muscles unclench.

Eventually, my wife reminded me of how atypical (abnormal, I believe she said) my reaction is.  After a couple of bees had chased her off the porch, she said that an eviction notice was in order. So I built a bee-vac (a shop vac connected to a bucket with an extra hose) and bought a smoker.  And I climbed the ladder and sucked the bees out of the column capital and into the bucket.


It was a catch-and-release approach - after capturing the queen and removing all of her servants, I relocated them to the batture. (And then I did it again, twice, as the servants continued to return to HQ from the field).

One of my projects has a beehive under the trailer used as a field office.  I am headed today see if I can remove them with the same ease as the first.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
 
Friday, May 15.
 
Sighhhhhhhh.
 
Apparently, the first thing you disconnect when you are going to move a work trailer?
 
The electricity.  Who knew? (I suppose I need to make a donation to the priest).  And so, when I went to connect my shop-vac-turned-bee-vac into the outlet, I end up with no juice.  No vaccuum means no bees in the bucket.   So all I could do was go and hang out with them a little bit before going home.
 
 
So because I couldn't remove the hive as planned, this morning the trailer was hooked up and driven off, leaving a trail of very confused bees in its wake. 

1 comment:

aunt Patty said...

Bee ns said Homer. Bee ns, bee ns berms, beens.