The Big Swarm!

Well, what excitement we had here today! Just as an aside....when i contemplated moving here, i thought it was all peace and quiet, just Terry, me and the dogs.....NOT!!! Luckily it's all wonderful stuff and creates such a rich and interesting life! Wouldn't change it for the world!

Back to our excitement! Mid morning Terry noticed a very strong buzzing over near the hives....and after a few moments investigation, he found a huge swarm of bees up in one of the spruce trees....actually it started out as two large swarms, about the size of large watermelons.....within about 10 minutes they merged into one really large - well something bigger than a watermelon!!! An emergency call was placed to Dennis, who arrived about 40 minutes later! After examination, and some mucking around with one of the hives....he decided to use a hoe and pull down the branch, gave it a huge tug and .... well all i can say is it was pretty unbelievable what took place next! There was a very loud thud, as the large ball of bees....he estimated there was about 6,000 of them....landed on top of the newly prepared frames! That didn't last very long. Pretty soon we had an enormous (i'm running out of adjectives!) cloud of bees, the noise was deafening.....and they moved in concert, across the field in front of us, and into the woods. Dennis, Terry, Richard and me with the camera were in hot pursuit!!! But alas, this swarm had already decided to flee the hive i guess! Dennis reckons they were carry around 10lbs of honey....apparently they plan all this if there is going to be a swarming - and the reason for swarming.....a new queen in the hive. Sure enough, when Dennis checked in on the frames, there were 2 or 3 new queen cells in waiting! So they were lost and gone for ever!

So exciting i tell you!

the rest of day pales in comparison so i won't bother to go into it!!!