My friend De invited me over to see a honey bee-hive being removed from inside the walls of her house.
Now, other people would be totally freaked out, but then there are the special people that are like earth angels who choose to see magic in everything. Never mind that a whole side of the house siding needed to be torn to get to the bees but saving the bees was real important to her.
Despite the slight stress of the bees trying to make themselves comfortable in her home there were other great things to see, like the lovely new pieces of mosaic art that she was working on such as the lovely sea horses. Even her yard was springing with magic, the wisteria and begonias were in bloom adding a splash of Spring to our amazing day. No wonder these bees were happy to call this place home.
So getting back to business… uhm or should we say Beez-ness? There is a lot involved in removing a swarm of bees. There were hand saws, electric saws and knifes just for removing the wood siding. De was running in and out getting this and that. The bees were lightly buzzing overhead – no big deal. It was gentle and peaceful buzzing.
De called her friend Lyn from Jalving Farms to come over and help her out with the bees-ness; and Lyn was there with some friends in their ‘hazmat’ suits… well just being dramatic, they did look cute in their protective gear with the mesh hats, full length sleeves and gloves. All pro!
They also had all the cool bees toys: the smoker was my favorite, I had a chance at pumping the little aparatus and watch the smoke come out. Examining a hive is much easier when you use a smoker. It is used to puff smoke into the entrance before opening and causes the bees to be gentler. But being that these bees were at De’s house well.. you know artist they are always in a cooler mental state, so these were special zen-bees.
Let’s see, they also had other things there like a brush for removing the bees from the frame… in this case it was used to brush the bees from the comb, some from the wall and siding. They brushed it into a container and from there it was shaken gently into the awaiting bee box. There was also ‘the hive tool’, and it’s used to scrape and pry open the covers and frames of bee boxes… in this case it was used as a supplement to the saw to pry apart the wood siding. They also had a bee box with empty frames. Lyn used rubber bands around the frames and that was used to help slide the lovely bee combs into the man made frames. Ingenious!
If you look at one of the first pictures you’ll see a black section – that’s pitch black full of BEES! Easily we were told that the hive contained between 15,000 to 20,000 bees. Bee “quick” was used to deter the bees from returning to the old home and a platform was quickly built. The bee box was placed over the “old home siding”, and in no time they were making this place their new home.
To have a honey bee invite itself into your home symbolizes family, community and nurturing…bee meaning primarily deals with the theme of life. …and how appropriate because my friend De is all about family, friends and community. May her home be continuously blessed and her heart always full of Love.
