Bees!

Read in the newspaper this morning about the bees that killed a dog in a Lubbock backyard.

It was said the backyard was full of bees. A single swarm does not take up a whole backyard. If it was "full of bees," then there might have been more than one swarm, which would be possible only if the original hive was nearby.

The article said to call a pest control if you see a few bees in one area. Well, I love to see plenty of bees visiting my flowers. I and others often choose plants that attract bees. I have wanted to keep bees, but the small backyard makes that difficult, plus there is all the time and worry of taking care of them, seeing they are disease-free and so on.

A dog, if it has never been stung by a bee or wasp, will tend to get aggressive if it sees a swarm of bees in its territory, just like a dog will attack a water sprinkler. Unfortunate.   Sad. 

My family had an old farm house north of Idalou West of 400. Abandoned as long as I can remember, but bees had taken up residence in a wall cavity of the house. My grandfather didn't have a good beekeeper's rig and got stung pretty bad pulling off the siding in order to harvest a chunk of honeycomb. Nice to have the bees there though.

I remember when Sears Roebuck at 13th & Q stocked supers and beekeeping equipment. Ah, the good old days.

Bees spread by "swarming."  When bee population or other conditions warrant, a queen (which may be a newly hatched queen or the old queen--only one queen being permitted to a hive) along with a mass of several thousand workers will leave the hive, like emmigrants leaving their home country.  They will fly for a distance, then land in a swarming mass in an attempt to found a new hive.  Commonly happens in May or thereabouts.

Back 20 years ago, I spotted a swarm on a tree in the front yard.  Called a bee keeper, who brought over a hive with honeycomb inside and hived the swarm over a couple of days.  Assuming the bees were healthy, they were worth some bucks.  About that time, a queen cost $20 or more plus shipping.    A few days later, we found a jar of fresh honey left on the porch as thanks.

So I would say, if you find a swarm of bees on your property you do not want, first try to find a bee keeper who might be interested and use pest control as a last resort.  Or. you can go to the library and learn about bees and then try to hive them yourself. 

Like the "prairie dog problem," IMO this is more a problem of too many citified people than bees or p-dogs. When are we ever going to classify people as "pests?" When a new family moves into the neighborhood, is there a pest control to call for that?  

Actually, bees are essential to our well-being.  And a big problem bees have is disease and pesticides.  There reports of bees declining in population, much like amphibians have.  Not good.  Without bees, what or who will fertilize our crops?  Without bees, we can starve.