About two weeks ago the men who mow our lawn told me that they thought we had a bee hive in our yard. They led me through the front yard to the city water access which is located in a hole in our front yard and sealed with a black cover. We stood there for a min and watched as 3 to 4 bees squeezed into and out of the hole in the cover every few seconds.
My first thought was, ARGH… who do I need to call to get rid of these bees? A few min later I came to my senses and remembered the multiple documentaries I have seen on the tragic subject of the disappearing honey bees.
Within an hour I had a bee jacket, a smoker and a hive box in my Amazon shopping cart! I was so excited… I had decided that I was going to attempt to domestic this hive and begin raising honey bees!!! I started reading about transferring hives and looking into beginner classes for raising honey bees. I couldn’t wait to share the good news with my sweet honey when he came home from work so that I could finally press the “Purchase” button on Amazon.
Well don’t get too excited… I am not raising honey bees. My husband came home and reminded me of his very serious allergy to honey bee stings, he does swells up pretty badly.
So… I called our pest control service to schedule an appointment. Since they were already scheduled to come about a week and a half later, I told them that it would be fine to take care of the bees at the same time.
During that week I tried to convinced a friend to transfer the bees to a bee box and begin raising them herself. I unknowingly picked a pretty likely candidate because during our conversation I found out that her brother actually raises honey bees a few states away, but unfortunately even though she was excited at the idea it didn’t work out.
Then I started wondering if I should look into calling some actual bee keepers who might be interested in attempting to transfer the hive, but as usual the time got away from me and the pest control appointment day arrived before I called someone else about the hive.
I led the man from our pest control service to the box and we watched it for a min and did not see any bee activity. We did see a few flies, but other than that nothing. He then asked me to step back while he popped open the cover and jumped back.
We found a dead hive. The hole in the ground was filled with water from the rain two days before and the hive had drown. There were tons of bees floating in the water and five soggy honey combs attached to the black cover.
The bees are dead, we have no honey here my friends, but I will keep that sweet honey in mind to help me remember where we are going and to help me stay on course so that someday I will arrive home to the land of milk and honey.
Keep Him in mind always and look for Him every where!