Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Another swarm

So catching another swarm today; these bees ended up in a bush in the cow pasture. Routine sort of capture; prepare a box, put the box under the bees, shake the bees into the box, put the box lid on. Kinda routine. I went away to do some other chores ,and returned to find...


The cows helping me. Well, as much as cows can help. They've knocked the top off the hive, and messed with the swarm, and it might not stay in its box. This is very annoying.

Ok. So I go get a bale of hay and bribe the cows with it. Even though there's fresh green grass all over, they like a bale of hay as a nice alternative. And then I rearrange the hive, and pick up the whole thing and carry it out of the cow pasture.

But the lid of the hive gets caught on the fence as I pass through the gate, and 20 or 30 bees pop out of it and land on my face. This is actually where you use your internal discipline -- I'm not wearing protective gear, and getting my face stung is my least favorite thing. So I carefully put the box down, and start brushing the bees off my face, and only get stung once, on the bottom of my nose.

The lengths I go through for sweeteners. I must really like honey.

1 comment:

Knox Gardner said...

Oh my lord. Those COWS! I am sorry you got stung Bruce, but those curious cows made me laugh out loud.