Backyard Blessings
Mama’s azalea bush was the buzz of the neighborhood when a swarm of honeybees paid a visit.
The neighbors are all abuzz when a swarm of bees comes calling.
Avolleyball-sized swarm of honeybees clung to a branch of Mama’s azalea bush in my Louisiana hometown. Four of us watched safely from 10 feet away as the beekeeper, a man of about 75 in jeans, a plaid shirt and work boots, walked up to the branch, grabbed it, and gently started to shake. Thousands of wings beat together in agitation, thrumming a loud warning. Instinctively, the four of us watching stepped back.
Although I have not lived in this place for nearly 30 years, I still visit every spring. Mama tells me the
comings and goings, so I knew we were witnessing the most exciting thing to happen in these parts since lightning struck a telephone pole a year ago.
The commotion started the night before when the woman next door knocked on Mama’s screen door. “Miss Catherine, are you aware that you have a whole bunch of bees in your azalea bush? I think they’re killer bees, and I don’t want them stinging my boys. I’ve already called the police.”
Mama shot out the door and made it halfway across the lawn before I caught up. A few honeybees flew into and out of the perfumed ivory blossoms on Mama’s orange trees, flitting all around in the golden glow of the sunset. Mama was dismissive.
“Where is a swarm, Courtney? I don’t see it.” Courtney pointed and we followed the flight path of a few bees as they lifted off flowers and flew toward the azalea bush. Mama gasped out loud.
“You’d better call the exterminator right away,” Courtney said. “I don’t want my boys to end up in the hospital.”
Mama stood with fists balled up at her sides, her lips thinned into a grim line. Living off Social Security and her meager retirement, she
counted every penny coming out of her bank account. I knew she thought of exterminators, police, screaming children attacked by bees, and whether her liability insurance was paid up.
Jake, Courtney’s dad, who was visiting from down the road, spoke up. “Hold on now. Those are honeybees that broke off from their hive. They do that when they get an extra queen. I bet we could find somebody who wants them.”
That somebody ended up being the beekeeper we now watched at work. He was recruited in the usual way of this small country town. Jake told his neighbor Curt about the swarming bees. Then Curt called his brother-in-law John, who keeps beehives.
When morning came, John and Curt drove up in John’s pickup, Jake following behind. There’s little in Curt’s face I recognize from the days I baby-sat his two sons, now grown with children of their own. “John here is my wife’s brother,” Curt told me. “His wife died a few months ago.”
Already concentrating on the bees, John didn’t look up. “Yup, she went home before me,” he said. “Now it’s just me and the bees. I collect the honey and sell it at the farmers market.”
Moving slowly and deliberately, like one of his bees collecting pollen, John grabbed a screened tray with his right hand and continued shaking the azalea branch with his left. Honeybees flew off, swarming his arm and the tray, which he laid on top of the hive he brought with him.
Jake shook his head. “Man, I don’t see how you can do that. No suit, no hat, no nothing. Don’t you get stung?”
“Nah, you just got to be gentle,” John said. “When the bees swarm like this, they’re usually gorged with honey. That makes them calm and easy to work around. Later tonight they’ll probably be a bit more touchy.”
John grabbed a fistful of pine needles, lit them, stuffed them into a smoker and with a bellows puffed smoke at the azalea bush. As he worked, he talked about the way of bees. “The queen is already on the screen; that’s why the drones are following her. The smoke will take her scent off the branch, so they won’t linger.”
In 30 minutes it was all over. John loaded the hive back into his pickup and climbed into the cab. “I’m only bringing these bees about a mile down the road,” he said. “They’ll probably come back for your orange blossoms.”
Mama turned toward the back porch and sighed. “Well, I guess that’s that. Let’s get some lunch.”
Eating red beans and rice, we wondered aloud whether the local honey we squeezed on our cornbread came from John’s bees. Crickets chirped, mockingbirds sang, and the neighborhood settled back to quiet.
“Mama tells me the comings and goings, so I knew we were witnessing the most exciting thing to happen in these parts since lightning struck a telephone pole a year ago.”