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The Swarm

By Bruce R.

When I was 20, I was the janitor at my church. We were having a cleanup-day. I was working with a man outside, and I saw a bee and made some comment about it. He mentioned that he used to raise bees. Really, tell me about it. He told me about how he captured his first wild swarm on a low branch. I was fascinated, and thought that sounded like fun.

Later that afternoon a swarm of bees collected on a low branch beside the church! The coincidence was too much for me! I asked the man if he would help me capture them. We did it just as he had described. I got a large cardboard box, and put it under the mass of bees. I held the branch while he cut it off. The bees were flying all around, and crawling all over my bare arms. But I knew if I stayed calm and didn't hurt any of them, all would be OK. (From that man and others I learned that this was probably the swarm's first day and it was probably on the limb, ready to settle for the night. So they were gorged on honey, and happy. After a few days of not finding a home, and getting low on energy, swarms can be more edgy and mean.)

I lowered the branch into the box, and just loosely closed the top so the bees could go in and out. When it was dark the bees would all go in for the night. I asked a friend with a car to help me get them that night. Actually, I thought about putting them on the back of my bicycle, but I didn't want to hurt them with a bumpy ride. That night, I taped up the box (there wasn't a single bee out). We put it in his station wagon, but he was really nervous and kept all of the windows open, even though it was chilly out.

I put the box in the back yard under a tree; not wanting them to get too hot in the sun. Mistake--bees like the heat of the sun and they can easily keep their hive cool. I put on some gardening gloves and, with a knife, I cut a small one by two inch hole in the bottom side of the box. The humming of the bees in the box was eerie. Mistake--bees like wider openings, so that they can come and go easily, and so they can control the air flow, for cooling.

I wasn't aware of my mistakes yet, but I knew they needed a proper home. The cardboard box was only for moving them. I looked in the yellow pages for beekeeping supplies, and found one located in Del Mar (I was in San Diego). It was about 15 miles away and there would be some hills to climb, but it was an easy ride for me. If the super (that's the name of the bee's box) was more that 60 pounds, I would just ride back home and ask for a ride. (Why didn't I ask someone for a ride? Yeah right, see Internal Combustion Engines for why.)

It was a warm day. I rode over to Torry Pines, and took the road down to the ocean. At Del Mar the hill wasn't too bad. I headed east into what looked like farm land. The beekeeping store was easy to find, and it was in a nice shady area.

The guy in the shop was really helpful. He pointed out the mistakes I made, but in a nice way. I got the super, filled with 12 frames, a smoker, and a net hat. He told me how to get the bees into the super, just pour them. So long as I get the queen in it, the other bees will stay.

I got it all strapped down on the rack. It probably weighed about 50 pounds. The whole bike was wobbly, so I would have to go slow. The ride took twice as long going back.

The beekeeper said I should close up the cardboard box, at night and make the transfer in the early morning. I put the super on a stand, in the sun.

In the morning I put on a heavy black jacket, that the bees couldn't sting through. Mistake--bees hate black. I tucked my pant legs into my socks, my gloves into the sleeves, and tucked the hat's net into the jacket neck. I carried the box over to the open super, and opened the top. The bees were pissed. A cloud of them flew around me. I had a large plastic quart container, which I scooped into the mass of bees in the box, and poured them into the top of the super. I kept scooping, and pouring. It seemed like half the swarm was flying now. I tried to look for the queen, but figured if I just got all of the bees out of the box, maybe the queen would get in the super. I heard a pelting sound; it was the sound of hundreds of bees hitting my jacket, attacking me! There was a pure white wax comb in the bottom of the box. It was about half the size of my hand.

I carefully slid the lid on. As I walked away the bees kept pelting me. I walked around the side of the house to the front, and checked for bees following me. They gave up.

Later in the day I saw a cluster of about a hundred bees swarming around where the cardboard box used to be. They must have been the first ones out of the box, and they didn't get their new bearings from the sun, so they were returning to what they remembered. They will probably die. I found out the proper way to move a hive a few feet, is to move it a foot or two feet each night, or to move it more than a mile away, for a couple of days, then move it back to where you want it.

A few months later my dad got stationed at Camp Pendleton. They sold the house and bought one in North San Diego County. I stayed in an apartment to continue college. They took over beekeeping. They hooked up with beekeepers in the area and bought more hives, and sold honey to restaurants.

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