Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Lucky I didn't get stung!

Wow...there's a beehive on one of the low trees in my garden!
This morning, I was working under the very tree, planting some cosmos there but I didn't look up so of course I didn't see it.


This afternoon, while I was working in another part of the garden and looked back, whow... there I saw a beehive full of bees on that tree!




I got stung by a bee some months ago. Boy, how it hurt! My finger got swollen so much that I had hubby use a ply and cut off the ring on that finger.
I'm sure I don't want to get stung again, especially when I'm here alone!

UPDATE Thursday, Aug 12: The swarm of bees has gone away! I checked it out this morning and there was nothing on the tree. Whew!

6 comments:

Larry said...

That's one nasty looking hive of bees! Larry

Hà Xuân said...

Yeah, Larry. Now I don't know what to do with it???? I dare not go near that tree!!!

Kris said...

Ha Xuan - from what I can see from the pic (a little fuzzy upon magnification) that looks like a swarm of honeybees. This happens when a hive gets too big so about half of them (and a new queen) fly off and look for a place to start their own hive. Those on your tree are really just 'resting' on their search. Call a local bee keeper and they will (usually) be very happy to come and collect that swarm and add them to their own hives/apiary.

Meanwhile, just leave them alone and they won't bother you at all. Really. They are still looking for a new home (hollow tree, old building, etc). They are not dangerous and don't want to sting you.

Over here it is illegal to kill honeybees because so much of our crops are pollinated by them.

Good luck and please keep us all posted.

Kris said...

Oh, I should mention that at my old house there was just such a swarm on my pine tree. A local beekeeper came and collected the swarm. It was very exciting to watch. He just identified the queen, gently picked her out, put it in a big box with a hole and we stood back as all the worker bees crawled in with her. It took about an hour. Then he took the box home. I wrote up an article about it for the newspaper.

Hà Xuân said...

Thanks for coming with advice, Kris. I think you're right, they're honeybees.
Once there was a bigger hive on the tree down in my Saigon garden. A neighbor offered to come search for the queen bee but he was late, they all went away before he came!
I hope this swarm will go away soon for my dogs like to run around that tree.
Will keep you update.

Kris said...

Glad everything is back to normal for you. :-D