Rescuing Bees

[aggienaut]

I. The Daily Story
   Once upon a time, about 13 years ago now, I started emosnail with the credo of "every day has a story, and I intend to tell it." And back then I did update just about every single day.

   13 years later here we are at emo_snal, we've lost an i, and updates are few and far between -- typically only when something really exciting happens and sometimes not even then (I swear one of these days I'll update on the exciting conclusion of the end of the last Turkey trip), but every update is a production now, not something to whip off in twenty minutes about the day's excitement.

   I do rather miss those good ole days though, and would like to get back to finding the story in every day and examining it. I'm sure that won't get around to happening, but I'll tell you about the latest bee-ventures.


II. First, on being an insecticidal maniac
   We've finally started doing live removals, AKA "bee rescues," at work. It's all kind of ironic, because you see, we love bees, my boss and I. We are as dedicated to and as knowledgeable about the trials and tribulations of the local bee population as anyone you could find short of one of the professional bee PhDs in the ivory tower. Yes, we kill bees, a lot of bees, and we get a lot of flak for that, but that's because the feral Africanized bees of unknown hygiene that people get in their walls are really of no value to the greater bee population and damaging to the beekeeping community. But drowning in a rising tide of consumers that veritably demand it, we've begun doing live removals.

   As a lover of bees, one has to kind of harden ones heart to the kind of killing we do. It's just business, you don't think about it. I'd kill bees all day and then come home and rescue a single bee from the pool, or a coworker would ask me to squash a single bee on a window and, after killing thousands, the personal-ness of squashing an individual would still repulse me.
   There was only one call I can recall really feeling guilty over. It was a feral colony under someone's jacuzzi and after I'd pulled off their outer wall and sprayed them with gas there was still not a single bee angry or trying to sting me. They were obviously very friendly bees, which, more than provoking mere sentimentality, had me thinking "I really want to use these bees as breeding stock!!!! I want their genetics!!" They would have been of real value to the world. But alas I had already gassed them and that was right before we officially began doing live removals.

   And to go off on a little bit (more) of a tangent, all our competitors are saying they're doing live removals, and they have pictures and videos on their websites purportedly showing them doing so, but not a single picture or video of them doing beekeeping or even delivering bees to a beekeeper (you'd think at least once they'd want to take a picture of the bee yard they delivered them to, wouldn't you?). My boss even called some of them pretending to be a random person looking to buy some honey and they of course didn't have any or have a beekeeper to recommend calling, a sure sign that they are not actually in contact with any beekeepers. In conclusion, its not that we're the only ones cold-hearted enough to kill bees, we're just the only ones who are honest about what we do!!

III. In the End, Only Kindness Matters


   Last Thursday I had a call for a requested live removal of a birdhouse full of bees (which is not a terribly uncommon place for them to inhabit). First I approached them bees without any protective gear on, which is my usual tactic to ascertain just how defensive the bees are going to be. Expected results range from bees becoming angry and possibly stinging me as soon as I'm nearby, to a bee or two starting to buzz angrily (to me the difference between an angry buzz and normal buzzing is plain as day) after I've stood next to them a minute or two. From this information I know whether I'm going to need the hot uncomfortable full suit or less, and if I can permit the homeowner to watch from a distance or will have to make sure there's no one outside anywhere nearby. In the case of this birdhouse I was able to get nose to nose with the hive entrance and for as long as I stood there no bees became angry.
   The homeowner even became brave, and encouraged by my ability to remain next to the bees unmolested, they approached it, but then to demonstrate that they believed the hive was not fastened down and could be easily removed, they gently jiggled it.
   Its funny the obscure things you take for-granted, I knew these bees to be very docile, but I was mortified that she'd jiggle the hive like that! The buzzing of the hive revved up to a veritable roar. But still it wasn't an angry roar -- we watched as bees came flooding out and began to whirl around in front of it.
   "I do believe they're sending out a swarm right now!!" I exclaimed. Sure enough, I even saw a queen bee emerge from the hive, which wouldn't happen for any other reason.
   Anyway, I let that swarm settle and vacuumed it up with the low-powered live capture vacuum, which really does seem to get them with zero casualties, and I lit the smoker and smoked the birdhouse --just to cover my bases, for they hardly seemed to need it-- and was able to tape some screen over the entrances, still without a single bee getting mad, and carry it to my truck. These bees were seriously unbelievably gentle.
   I was incredibly glad to have these delightful bees alive. I called my boss and informed him I wouldn't be taking them to the company bee yard -- I was taking these ones straight to MY house! I got home and, cradling the little birdhouse full of bees in my arms, took it a short way up the hill in the backyard and placed it on a chair up there. In all the times I've gone up there to look at it I have still not seen or heard a single angry bee.



IV. The Second Swarm
   Returning from work Friday evening I found they had sent out ANOTHER swarm, which had landed on a nearby patio beam. While the swarm was very small, its still kind of amazing that this already-very-small hive has sent out two swarms since I've known it.
   Swarms are "supposed" to be very docile, but I've found most swarms in this area will sting you just for looking at them. This one however I was able to play around with, sticking my finger all the way in to the solid mass of bees and other things, without getting stung. I didn't have a beehive to put the swarm in though, and didn't want to shake them in to some random box and then again into a beehive, so I decided to wait until I had a chance to go back to work and get a hive box.
   All that evening, while I was out at the bar with my coworker/shipmate Russell and some friends that are staff at the Ocean Institute (that owns the Brig Pilgrim) I was worrying about those bees. What if they don't have enough collective body mass to stay warm all night? Should I have put them in a box so they could stay warm? When I got home at 1am I went out there and felt the outside of swarm, the outer bees felt fairly cool. But then again none were buzzing -- if they were TOO cold they would buzz to generate heat. It wasn't a terribly cold night anyway, probably upper 50s, which is a survivable body temperature for bees.
   The next morning (this morning, Saturday morning), I had to go do my volunteering thing on the boat in the morning. After lunch I rushed home to make sure the swarm was still there, it was. I went to work and got a hive box. I came home with the box and placed it under where the swarm was hanging...
   At that EXACT MOMENT I heard their buzzing rev up to full throttle. Now, I hadn't jostled them or anything, there's no way I could have triggered this. Just a crazy coincidence, that after two days of hanging there, the exact moment I put a hive under them to move them into they all took off and flew off over some neighboring shrubbery and out of sight.

   Oh well, I would have really liked to have that swarm in a hive, but I still have the original in the bird house. But I can't open up the bird house and see how they're doing in there like I could have done with bees in a hive box. Maybe they'll send out another swarm soon though...

Comments

[fimbrethil.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this. I love your bee stories.

At the botanical garden where I work, we have 7 hives. It's been a harsh winter in NYC but I was delighted to see that the bees in our observation hive had done some housekeeping and were sending out scouts on a particularly warm and sunny day.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

How exciting! :D

So they live in the observation hive year round? Is it big? Indoors? We've had trouble keeping hives alive in observation hives here. /:

[fimbrethil.livejournal.com]

All the hives are the same size, what I think of as a standard hive size, and are wood with metal roofs. The obsevation hive varies in that it has three doors that can be raised to view a cutout covered in plexiglass. Those doors are taped shut in the winter. All the hives are outdoors but the observation hive in near the entrance to the bee garden and the other 6 are up the hill toward the back. All our bees died during the winter in 2013 so the beekeeper brought new colonies last May. I don't know if the other 6 hives survived but the front hive was a flurry of activity last week.

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

I'm so happy to know there are bee hives there. I volunteered there 40 years ago and spent many happy hours there.

[fimbrethil.livejournal.com]

At the Queens Botanical Garden? Did you know Fred Gerber? We may have seen each other once upon a time. I would have been 8 forty years ago but my dad took me there when I was a kid a lot. They have since redone a great deal of the buildings and landscaping. It looks so different now but just as beautiful.

[anisoptera.livejournal.com]

This would be the summer of 1971. My two older sisters and I participated in a veggie garden for city kids program (I was even interviewed by the Daily News!) and when they realized we already knew how to garden they asked us to work in the main gardens. That fall we moved out of the city to upstate NY. So glad to know it is still going strong.

[magenta-girl.livejournal.com]

I love the bee stories as well!

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks! (:

[selucius.livejournal.com]

I always wondered how you bridged the dilemma of working at Bee Busters and still being able to make winged insect friends everywhere you go. You like the bee whisperer.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

The flak I get from other bee enthusiasts is worse than the actual killing of the bees. One gets rather philosophical about it -- death is part of life. These bees in people's walls can't be there and are usually pulling the gene pool down anyway. If I didn't kill them someone else would anyway, either another Bee Busters employee or another company. Its a little harder when I have a little more choice -- like when my parents had bees in THEIR wall and wanted me to kill them, I dragged my feet on that a bit.

In Australia since we weren't allowed to use the medications that would prevent it, hives sometimes contracted the incurable and very contagious bee disease "American Foulbrood" and would have to be put down to prevent the disease's spread. That was always hard for me. I had a whole trailer of 24 hives that had it at one point. I thought it was funny that my boss the farm owner was dragging his feet on giving me the go ahead to put them all down and burn them, I didn't want to do so either but to me it was sometihng that absolutely had to be done. I was pretty well depressed for about three days over it though.

But yeah, death is a part of life I say, and its all namby pamby to put one's head in the sand and say one's going to try to avoid killing anything even when it's the most appropriate course of action. d:

[selucius.livejournal.com]

In Texas, we mainly get wasps. There is no such thing as a non-angry wasp. I never go into battle with less than two fists of death spray.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Wasps around here aren't as scary as they look but you won't find my trying to pat them ;D

[technophobe1975.livejournal.com]

I think that it is very interesting what you said about hives having a distinct "personality" of their own, as you always think that bees are all very similar.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Oh different hives definitely have different personalities, both because they all share genetics as sisters and half-sisters, and learned behavior -- for example I've noticed hives on the ends of rows tend to be meaner than the others, presumably because they're always getting intruders in the form of bees mistakenly trying to enter them instead of the correct hive, which in turn leads the hive to increase its guard force.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

I love this and am so glad you posted it (and just that you posted anyhow). Did I ever ask you if you know Deborah Gordon's work on ants? Because she talks about her harvester ants in ways similar to the way you talk about bees.

http://www.amazon.com/Ants-At-Work-Society-Organized/dp/0684857332/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1394988248&sr=8-2&keywords=deborah+gordon+ants

http://www.amazon.com/Ant-Encounters-Interaction-Networks-Behavior-ebook/dp/B004Y546VQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1394988248&sr=8-1&keywords=deborah+gordon+ants

She sent ants up to the space station a month or two ago, too.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmmm interesting no I wasn't familiar with her work!

Ants in space! I can't help but think of the Simpsons episode with "I for one welcome our new insect overlords" -- I tried to find the video clip just now but found it surprisingly illusive. /:

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I am frightened by bees, although I wish I weren't. Being stung is scary and hurts. I just want them to go on about their business and not bother me! So I like reading about how much you care about bees and what it is like to be a bee keeper (or killer, sad).

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Will the swarm return to live in the hive box?

[allyra.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever told you how much I appreciate what you and other people who work with bees do! We need those little critters so much. Sorry you have to kill them sometimes. I'm sure that gets to you at least now and again.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I've learned more about bees from reading this than I ever did anywhere else. Perhaps in another life I might have been a bee keeper. So, to add to the enthusiasm here, I too 'love' your bee stories. All the others as well, but the bee stories especially.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Thanks (:

Let's do a pact!

[estelle.livejournal.com]

I want to update more regularly again as well :)

Why did you move from emosnail?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

I'll do my best! People seem to like my day to day entries actually, I've been surprised these last few days.


As to the move, really its because I didn't want to clutter up my original, emosnail, with LJI entries, but by the time the first season was over I was getting so many more comments and things at the alternate emo_snal that I felt like no one was reading anything posted to emosnail and just started treating emo-snal as the main!