A friend posted a troubling story on Facebook about a beekeeper who came across children killing a swarm of bees by spraying them with a garden hose.
The beekeeper put a stop to it and rescued bees that might still be alive, and laid them on a dry surface to try to save them. With little luck. Usually, a wet bee is a dead bee.
We know kids can be cruel. But I would like to think something else was going on. The kids may have seen the bees as enemies. They may have thought they performed a service, saving themselves and others from stings.
It’s not like erroneous reports don’t circulate about someone who was “chased by a swarm of bees.” TV and movies show bee swarms arriving from a dark sky, accompanied by ominous music.
But swarming bees are temporarily homeless, and have little to protect. The hazard of getting stung is small. The internet posts abundant videos of beekeepers coaxing bee swarms into cardboard boxes or other containers to move them to hives. Some beekeepers do this with little or no protective clothing. Nonprofessionals should not try it. If a person gets close to the queen, guard bees may see this as a threat, and sting.
Erica Thompson, called the Queen Bee of Tic Toc, appears in many videos scooping up handfuls of bees with bare hands. They cover her skin. She likes working without a bulky suit and gloves, she says, and thinks it is safer for the bees. She handles honeybees, and regards them as a gentle species. Thompson, who trusts the bees fully, probably communicates a scent of confidence, not fear, and bees are all about pheromones.
Bees swarm to start a new colony. Nature built this into them for reproducing. When the hive begins to feel crowded, or inconvenienced, or short on resources, scout bees go looking for a new locale. They want to find a place with good shelter, adequate water, and abundant blooms.
If you encounter bees nosing around a tree cavity, they may be scouts. Scouts visit several places, and then decide together which is best. People who observe hive life closely tell us that bees democratically choose where and when to go.
Beekeepers watch for signs that a hive is about to swarm, and take measures to prevent it. They used to clip the queen’s wings, but that practice has mostly gone away. Beekeepers now try to separate a single hive into two, to keep the bees on the beekeeper’s property.
You may wonder, if bees are particular about finding a new home, why do swarms sometimes settle on the undercarriage of cars, in the eaves of an urban gas station, or on a well-used sidewalk? I haven’t read a satisfactory explanation. Sometimes bees check out a location for a short time before moving on. Or, do they, like us, sometimes make bad choices?
When we consider the preparation and organization that goes into the decision to leave the hive, we need to mourn for the swarm that children drowned with a garden hose.
Whitney Huston left us good words. She pointed out that children are our future, and urged us to “teach them well, and let them lead the way.”
Next time: Youth Who Are Leading the Way.
1000 Reasons to Love Bees 