If you follow our Yahoo group email list, you know that Mark posted yesterday about a swarm of bees gathering under a bike seat at Coco's Variety in Silver Lake. This is very near our house, so I figured that some combination of Russell and Kirk and me could go get them within the next day.
Well, neither of my dudes were available, and the more I started thinking about it the more I thought that those bees weren't going to stay for long. My guess is that they got displaced by the Eagle Rock fires of the day before and would soon be searching for a more suitable home. I postponed a meeting, gathered up some nerve and headed out to get those bees. I got a pep talk from Kirk on the way over that helped a lot.
As you can see above, it was a pretty small swarm. I brushed them into a nuc box. They flew around angrily and landed back on the bike. This happened several times.
I was getting sweaty and frustrated and started thinking that this wasn't going to work. One more try and finally it appeared that I had gotten the queen into the box. All of the rest of the girls began marching in there like good little soldiers.
I taped up the box, threw it in my trunk and brought it home. The bees still seem to be there this morning! We're going to try and find a way to get them set up at Farmlab sometime soon if they stick around.
This was my first solo bee rescue and I can't say I wasn't terrified. I'm pretty proud of myself now. I made it back to the office by my 3:00 meeting with a bit of time to spare.
If I can do this you can too!
