Sometimes I like to think virtue gets rewarded.
This weekend brought in some unbelievably perfect weather, the kind of crystalline days that make the spring in Virginia about perfect. My first thought upon stepping outside was that, after several miserable days, it was a perfect day for swarms.
But through sheer force of will (and because I have so much to get accomplished at the moment) I went to the library and read microfilm of nineteenth century correspondence.
Clearly this produced some good Karma. After a couple of hours my cellphone rang informing me of a swarm only a couple of miles away. I went and grabbed it and hived it and was back in the library within a couple of hours.
The swarm was pretty good size and easy to grab on a low branch. I just shook it into a bucket and off I went. This was a fortunate swarm, I need some more bees to get the strawberry honey at my yard in Pungo.
More interesting than the swarm was the place it chose to sojourn. The house was in a rough section of Norfolk and had some of the key hallmarks of such--chainlink fence in the front yard, numerous handlettered 'no trespassing' signs, and, of course, a barely restrained pitbull tied to a frayed rope in the front yard. You can see one of the signs in the first picture. Unfortunately I was not really in a position to take a lot of pictures.
The bees didn't seem to mind the surroundings.
This weekend brought in some unbelievably perfect weather, the kind of crystalline days that make the spring in Virginia about perfect. My first thought upon stepping outside was that, after several miserable days, it was a perfect day for swarms.
But through sheer force of will (and because I have so much to get accomplished at the moment) I went to the library and read microfilm of nineteenth century correspondence.
Clearly this produced some good Karma. After a couple of hours my cellphone rang informing me of a swarm only a couple of miles away. I went and grabbed it and hived it and was back in the library within a couple of hours.
The swarm was pretty good size and easy to grab on a low branch. I just shook it into a bucket and off I went. This was a fortunate swarm, I need some more bees to get the strawberry honey at my yard in Pungo.
More interesting than the swarm was the place it chose to sojourn. The house was in a rough section of Norfolk and had some of the key hallmarks of such--chainlink fence in the front yard, numerous handlettered 'no trespassing' signs, and, of course, a barely restrained pitbull tied to a frayed rope in the front yard. You can see one of the signs in the first picture. Unfortunately I was not really in a position to take a lot of pictures.
The bees didn't seem to mind the surroundings.
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