LA Backwards Beekeeper Roberta writes:
Last night I found a very strange swarm in Long Beach. By Kevin’s description there was a fist size group of bees on his front lawn this afternoon and by the evening there was a 1.5 foot flat blob of bees spread out on the grass.
I’ve seen this a couple of times before, but only when something bad had happened to them. I’ve seen it where there were lots of disoriented bees and dead bees as if someone had sprayed with a pesticide and they fell to the ground.
But Kevin is a lover of all animals (except fleas, he admits). So it's a mystery.
Well, it’s a mess scooping bees off the grass. I scooped as many as possible and then vacuumed the stragglers. I eventually had to put this mess of a box into another one.
Henry and Barbara going to watch them and will let us know how they do. The bees will get to move to the farm if they turn out to be healthy. They were very frisky so I’m hopeful things will turn out well.
—Roberta
Update: They were brought to the farm the next day and they came out like gangbusters. Looked pretty healthy from the way they were flying.
