A neighbor called and said she saw a swarm on a fire hydrant so I grabbed my bucket and ran there as fast as I could. I dabbed some lemongrass oil on the bottom of it and they walked in. After about 5 minutes I just scooped the rest in and bam! Free bees!
I got the queen on the first scoop too though. Apparently she was a new one because she was piping in there really loudly. This is my first personal swarm catch so honestly I’m not sure if that was supposed to happen or not.
What other website am i going to see posts where the op talks about “bam! Free bees!”
I feel this is an appropriate post to retell the time my dad got free bees (found an extra thrown swarm) but didn’t have any equipment to transport them, so he just grabbed the queen in a pint jar, let the other swarm into his Ford Escort, and drove down the highway to home with a swarm of bees loose in the car.
I would honestly die of delight to find someone who watched my dad (~72 white guy) driving down a major Illinois highway with a swarm of bees loose in the car just chillin.
I’m sorry, he’s just like that.
Imagine getting pulled over by the cops and just turning to the bees like Sic em gang
Listen. I studied bees for months and worked on designing some of our campus hives, I’m super comfortable around bees because I know how chill they usually are aND YET I AM STILL LOSING MY SHIT OVER THE THOUGHT OF THAT DAD JUST????? CHILLIN??? DRIVING DOWN A FRICKN HIGHWAY WITH A SWARM OF BEES?????? LOSE?!?!? IN!?!?! HIS!!?!?!? CAR?????!!!?!??!
For reference, here’s an example of the car he was driving:
Okay but I looked up “Queen bee piping” and apparently this sounds something like a duck playing a kazoo, and I am DELIGHTED.
