Hopefully he won't mind me redisplaying one of his photos here! Anyhow - this is from one of his adventures in beekeeping where one of his hives split and had a swarm travel a short ways across town, freaking people out along the way. If you check out the entry you can see more pics as they're following the swarm (or more appropriate would be "travelling IN the swarm"), and then once the bees settled, scooping many of them (including the queen) back up into a bucket (with a SPATULA!) and taking them back home again.
I love this stuff!
Sometime between, oh, '90-'92?...I was working at the Bookery Fantasy comic shop in Fairborn, Ohio when we noticed a swarm of bees outside. The queen decided to settle down in a hole in the brick wall of the firestation right next to us (there was just an alley drive between the two buildings). I think it was about midway up the second story of the building? Anyhow, while hundreds of the bees were covering the side of the building, there were still many swarming in a sort of "bee tornado" out in our front parking lot. So cool! So tempting!
So I went out and stood right there in the middle of the bee swarm - such an amazing experience. We're all so afraid of being stung by bees, and yet it turns out, when they're swarming, that's one of the last things on their minds. They're all bloated up with honey they're taking from the old hive to start their new home... Stinging you kills them. They just want to set up shop and starting building a new home. So you can stand right out in the middle of this swarming cloud of bees and feel totally safe.
Boy, I hope I get to do that again sometime!
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