Bzzzzzz

 

 On Friday evening, we all sat down for dinner at our kitchen table.   Cooper asked, "Hey mommy, what are all those things flying around the tree?"   I looked out the window, and quickly realized that the entire backyard was COVERED in bees.  The entire sky was full.  

Scary.

Then, it seemed like they started congregating around one of the magnolia trees.   Sure enough, after a while, they all landed on a branch.

 

 I figured it was hundreds.   Colin guessed thousands.

We called animal control ... already closed for the day.

Called the police department to see if they had someone that they could suggest.

No help.

With a little help from google, we found the number to a place called

Collin County Bee Keepers Association.

They were very helpful and gave us the name of Larry Parker.

He told us that they were probably settled in for the night, 

and that he would come over first thing in the morning.

 

 The next morning

  (after I had nightmares about the kids playing outside and getting stung hundreds of times), 

Larry the beekeeper showed up.  

He was extremely nice and decided that he would just cut the branch to move the hive into the box.

I was feeding maggie and the boys were eating breakfast.  I was also trying to take pictures.

 

 He moved the branch into the box.

 

 He sprayed them with sugar water so that they would be too busy licking themselves to notice that he was putting them in a box.

Can you see all the other bees flying around?

Creepy.

Turns out that he had chased this same hive about 3 days before on a street about 1 mile away from our house.   Or he assumes that is the same hive.   His guess was that a hive got disturbed or knocked down, so they were looking for a new home.  Or, a hive got too big, so the queen bee layed a "queen egg"" and the new queen and half the hive moved on to find a new home. 

Turns out we had around 8,000 - 10,000 bees.

All that were left were about 30 or so bees ...

They are still there  - hanging out on the tree.

But Larry the beekeeper says they will die in a few days, since there is no queen.

Or, they will move on.

The whole process was fascinating.   But, also terrifying.  I just keep thinking about how often the boys are playing outside while I am in the kitchen.   What if the bees had started swarming when they were out there?   Or they were already on a branch and got disturbed.  I should mention that they were only about 2-3 feet off the ground.

Luckily, the boys weren't outside, and we are hoping that is the only visit we get from bees... ever. 

We're looking forward to Larry bringing us some honey.