When lightning struck down a very large basswood tree in Campbellsport, Wisconsin, last week, it displaced a small colony of honeybees that had made their home in the hollow trunk.
Public Works officials set up barricades with signs reading “Danger: Bees” and police kept people away from the site while a call went out to Dennis Haber, “The Bee Guy,” to come and deal with the insects…
It’s a fairly typical scenario, and one that we’ve all seen on our local news programs. And the appearance of honeybees outside their hive, too often, seems to be reported in highly dramatic terms — Swarm of bees stops traffic on Main Street!
I can’t help thinking, it sounds like something out of a sci-fi horror “B movie”!
Consider the facts:
- Less than 1 percent of the population has a systemic allergy to bee stings.
- Bees will defend their queen and their hive, but a swarm has no hive to protect. By nature, unlike some other insects with stingers, honeybees are not aggressive without a good reason.
- A honey bee can sting a person only once; the bee will die when she stings.
And yet, it’s not uncommon for otherwise capable adults to verge on near-hysteria when faced with a cluster of bees.
Fight or Flight!
In Florida, for example, a few summers ago, a very small swarm of honeybees settled onto a backyard swing set in a suburban backyard.
The occupants of the home, rather than waiting for the bees to move on to another location, threw tennis balls at the swarm to try to dislodge it.
When that got “pretty boring,” they improvised an incinerator and burned out the bees with several quarts of gasoline, high-octane gasoline, and paint thinner.
More recently and closer to home, the Atlantic Lottery folks came out with a television commercial — it’s on the air now, in fact — showing a fully-suited beekeeper running in panic from his own bees!
It’s that grade-B horror film, all over again…
Don’t such examples speak volumes of how deep-seated the fear of bees has become?
A primitive fear based on ignorance and misunderstanding, unchallenged, is surely part of what fuels the latest crop of restrictive anti-beekeeping by-laws — just at a time when small beekeepers are needed more than ever before, to help maintain a healthy honeybee population.
Hope for Honeybees?
To be sure, the recent media coverage of Colony Collapse Disorder has gone a long way to helping the North American public grasp the importance of bees to our food supply and economy…
Ah, but when it comes down to a handful of social insects passing peacefully through a suburban backyard? — Apis mellifera needs an image consultant!
photo: Joann Schrauth
In the case of Campbellsport’s storm-struck honey tree, however, the honeybees had a happy ending.
Exterminator Dennis Haber suggested that the officials should call in a beekeeper to relocate the bees, instead of getting him to kill them off. And that’s what happened.
“It’s simpler to keep them in (the tree) and put the trunk on a trailer,” said beekeeper Benny Hall, loading up the hollow tree trunk and hauling it off, bees and all, to a new home in the country.
Here’s an interesting footnote to the story:
The tree’s owner had no idea that honey bees had been sharing his property all along — not until the storm brought down that tree, and exposed the bees to view.
See also
Bees get new home after lightning knocks down tree by Joann Schrauth
Fond du Lac Reporter, 23 August 2007
Bee Identification Chart
Texas A&M University Department of Entomology
Disclaimer: The preceding article reflects the personal opinion of its author, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of the Central Beekeepers Alliance and/or our individual members. Alternate viewpoints are welcome, within the bounds of law, good taste, and clean language: contact the webmaster.
Written by beekeepers
Topics: What's the Buzz?