What is in that tree????

We've been having some problems with our garage door lately and we had someone come fix it yesterday (different story, but I am SO happy not to have to operate it manually any longer!), so we had parked our Bumpy Rider (aka the 4Runner) in front of the house so the repair man could work on it without our vehicle getting in the way. After he finished, Miles was still napping, so Oliver and I walked on the side of the house to go get the bump back in the garage. As we were approaching the front yard, I noticed some unusual flying activity going on around our little Juniper Tree in our front flower beds. As we got closer, I noticed they were bees. And as we got even closer, I saw this...

Do you know what that is?

It is a massive, huge, disgusting amount of BEES!

At first I called it a hive, but I was informed by a beekeeper that it is actually a swarm.

another close up

from a different angle. YUCK!

I had actually been a little nervous that given Oliver's affinity to Winnie the Pooh stories, DVD's, etc., that he had not developed a healthy fear of bees since Pooh never gets stung by the bees. I was wrong. I am happy to report that he was made very nervous by this quivering mass of bees (maybe happy isn't the right word, perhaps satisfied is a better choice).

So what do you do with a huge pile of bees hanging in your tree?? I started with the City of Plano Animal Services and they quickly re-directed me to some actual beekeepers. The beekeeper's wife I spoke was so nice and informative. I began with letting her know that we have a hive in our tree. She so nicely let me know that it actually wasn't a hive, it is a swarm. Apparently there must be a hive somewhere close (within a mile) that has outgrown it's capacity. The bees then raise a new queen and a portion of the bees leave with the old queen to go to a new hive in a new destination, this is called a swarm. You can read all about it, like I just did here. The beekeeper told me that they could come and remove the swarm for $100, or we could just wait and the bees would move on in a couple of days. We decided to wait. A couple of hours later, we got a phone call from an acquaintance of the beekeeper I spoke to who just so happened to need a swarm of bees and asked if he could come by later to pick it up. I got really excited to be able to watch the process and perhaps get some good pictures with my superzoom camera. No luck. The bees left on there own. At least I got these pictures before they left, and now I have a cool story and a greater knowledge of Africanized Honey Bees. Fascinating!