7/6/12

Viewer mail: Bees in a BIG fallen tree!



Diana in Maryland writes:

Hi! I just rescued my first wild hive on Sunday... all due to the knowledge I gained from YOUR site! Wouldn't have been able to do it without all the info you post all the time!


She tells the story on her blog:

...a friend of a friend had a bee tree come down in the recent storm, and instead of calling the exterminator they called me instead! And thanks to Backwards Beekeepers, I’d read enough tutorials on wild hive cutouts that I felt confident enough to give it a shot.

These storms have been devastating for hundreds of people. Many of my friends are without power in this hundred-degree heat. (I’ve opened my house and pool to them and their kids.) But this particular family came very, very close to utter catastrophe. It is an absolute miracle that this bee tree, about 5 feet in diameter at the base, fell away from the house. I’m so glad that their family came through without injury or property damage.

This is only the bottom half of the tree:




And the top half is over here:




It is about 3 feet in diameter at the point it broke off. It could have killed someone if it had fallen on the house.

Another miracle is that the bee colony inside was fairly ok. There were thousands of bees in there, and astonishingly they were the most docile bees I’ve ever worked with, especially considering what they’d just been through.




Read the rest: Bees in the trees (These Two Hands blog)