Catching bees

Tuesday Garry was back on the tractor while I was in and out of the house watering the garden. I kept having students show up looking for Garry, they couldn't seem to get their heads around the fact he was out in the field. He did get finished mowing hay by one pm, and Artom finished spraying the rest of the wheat so he could get back to driving tractor instead of Garry on Wednesday morning.

Garry had a few things to do in the afternoon, meeting with a pastor friend of our new translator, out under the walnut trees. That's right we have hired a new translator, Nellya, a single lady closer to our age, we hope she will be able to be a group home parent as well, because Luda decided to leave us to start over in western Ukraine with her adult children.

Garry had noticed a lot of bees flying around while he was outside (with the new hives there are more around) but around four o'clock he came in the house, because he had found a swarm of bees on one of the apple trees in the yard.  He was upset that he couldn't call Victor because his phone book had somehow disappeared on his new phone, he only had a couple of numbers, and none of the important ones.

Max cutting the branch they were on

Luckily I figured out how to find Victor's number (I have only Garry on my phone, and we gave my other phone to Nellya to use a few days ago, she didn't have a cell) I turned off airplane mode which was on, and then it was there. I hurried after Garry who was ready to go with Max and get them, so he could phone for more guidance on catching them.

Here are some photos I took with my phone of them catching the bees, Victor will be out today to see them, we are wondering if it is the rogue group that broke away with the old queen from the yellow box that he had noticed the day before while checking the bee hives. That box had a new young queen in now.

Garry and Max were in the protective bee hats, shirts and gloves and had a pail of water and a little Ukrainian broom, Victor had told them to wet the bees to calm them and had a ladder and the rechargeable circular saw to cut the branch off the bees were on. They had the old green box that was empty to put them in under the tree (that was the one the hive that died over the winter was in).

sprinkling water

 First Max climbed the ladder and used the broom to sprinkle water on the bees, then he used the saw to cut the branch and held onto it at the same time. Then he handed it off to Garry, while a small clump of bees fell off on the ground, but he stuck the branch on the box and got as many bees in as possible.

Handing over the bee branch

into the box

 The audience they had gotten of people working in the yard had moved further away when the branch came down (the cats stuck around) and the bees were buzzing around but they got most of the them in and closed most of the top of the box, they left a hole that the rest of the bees used to join them.

Twenty minutes later, all the bees had settled down in their new home. We left the box there on the ground. Victor phoned back after seeing the photos on facebook to say they should be moved around dark. Around eight pm, as dusk was falling I helped Garry move the box into line with the rest of the bee boxes, so all the hives will have safe traffic patterns home.