Saturday morning, we were alerted by a neighbor that this was in our front yard tree...
A closer look...yes, it was a swarm of honeybees...
We didn't want to kill them or have them killed so we went to the first source we could think of...our honey man. We have been buying local honey for three years now to help us with our allergies. The kids even eat it and it's delicious and made from bees right here in Spring and it does work as far as helping our allergies. James and I rarely get sick. This is A.C., he owns all the bees from the stand we buy from. The sweet guy that sells A.C.'s honey to me is Bob. James drove over and told Bob what was in our little tree. Bob called A.C. and within 30 minutes, A.C. was at our house doing this...Now that's what I call SERVICE! =)
A.C. is 70 years old and his dad raised bees back in the 40's and 50's. A.C. is a character and James and I soaked up all of his stories witthin the hour that he was at our house. He looks older than 70 though, he's bald, his skin is worn and leathery looking from years of working out in the sun. But, he does all this work by himself and had no problem doing it either. He's using what he called a "smoker" here.
After he smoked them out of my tree, he got one of his bee boxes off his truck and the bees naturally started going in it. At first they gathered down at the bottom of the trunk. A.C. said that was because the queen was in that bunch.
A.C. smoking them off the trunk here. You can see a lot of them still flying around. A.C. didn't even use his special gloves he said he has, he only wore the veil. He got stung several times on his arms and hands. I felt bad for him but he didn't act like it bothered him one bit. He was the sweetest man and James and I learned a lot of neat things about bees!! A.C. would not take a dime from us for taking care of our little problem. I think he was just happy to be getting a free swarm of bees. =)
I took this picture a few hours after A.C. came and went. He left the box under our tree, safe and secure, so that the bees could calm down and make themselves at home. As you can see here, most of them are all in the box now. As of today, Monday, our bees are still here and they are happy little clams in that box. A.C. is coming to get them after dark tonight.
In this clip, A.C. is knocking the remaining bees out of our tree with our broom - he said he forgot his "bee brush" and then he was smoking them. The smoker he uses calms the bees down and makes them sting less too.
In this clip, A.C. is smoking the bees off of the tree trunk. You can try to click on my film to see it bigger but if you turn your volume up, you can definitely hear the loud hum of the bees. It was awesome to be here and see it in person. I was filming all of this from our garage.
James and I were tickled that we got to meet A.C. and that he came so fast and took care of this for us. Our bee man is awesome!! Thank you A.C.!! It was an experience we won't soon forget.
