- The beekeeper
> began clapping his hands together sharply for about 30
> seconds. Then he switched tobanging two pie tins for
> another minute. He said this would bring the swarming bees
> together.
> In three minutes the bees had assembled on one limb
> we retrieved the swarm and hived it without incident.
> I've never seen this done before. Is it sound biology or
> French wish fulfillment?
>
Hi Jim,
I've seen Canadian beekeepers bang on the hood of their trucks and yell at
sight of a swarm. I always thought it was to vent frustration but maybe its
just the French part of a Canadian coming out. The incident you witnessed
reminded me of a story in W.H.Turnbull's book ' 100 years of beekeeping in
British Columbia : 1858-1958 '. Since this book is long out of print and Mr.
Turnbull has passed on I don't think he'd mind if I quoted that part of his
book here.
"....We arrived at the apiary( of some half dozen colonies) about 9:30 one
bright morning, and as we drove into the yard we could see there was more
than usual going on. A huge swarm of bees was milling around in the air
close to the apiary. Three men where running around, one carrying water
being pumped by a teenaged girl ) and throwing it up into the swarm,
another was gathering up loose dust from the ground and throwing it into the
swarm. A women .....was beating a galvanized washtub with a large kitchen
spoon, and off to one side another women was perched on the top of a small
building with a kitchen mirror which she used to catch a ray of sunlight,
playing it up and down through the swarming bees.
Knowing the habits of bees, Jim and I walked into the center of the
milling mass without any protection and watching closely we noted the queen
light at the ground at our feet. I remarked to my companion, ' Jim, the
swarm will cluster right here', pointing to the ground at our feet.
The men noted my pointing finger and heard my remark as the swarm settled
very fast. It was only about five minutes until there was a large pile of
bees clustered around where the queen had settled. I called to the owner and
asked him to bring me a hive, which he had ready. Not being able to get the
swarm on a sheet (in the time honored way), I placed the hive facing the
sun, and at the edge of the swarm and tapped it hard,( an old French custom
I had seen used many times with success). The bees immediately started to
march into the front opening and soon the queen was sighted hustling in with
the rest.......I was introduced to the owner and he said he had never seen
anything like that happen before. I asked him the meaning of all the
excitement when we were coming in, and he said, ' in old country when bees
swarm we do this; throw water into air bees think it rain, dust all same,
old women pound tub, bees think thunder, and women use mirror bees think
lightning, they not like storm and hurry into hive. Your plan much better,
you say " light here" and they light......"
This isn't sound biology. In fact I can see both men going off thinking
the other was the reason the swarm landed. Bees don,t have ears so unless
they can feel vibrations through the air they should be indifferent to
noise. I am not going to rule that possibility out though. An article titled
Quantum Honeybees by Adam Frank in the Nov. 1997 issue of Discover magazine
says that mathematician Barbara Shipman's work suggests bees - "....are
somehow sensitive to what's going on in the quantum world of quarks, that
quantum mechanics is as important to their perception of the world as sight,
sound and smell." ( This article says bees may be using six dimensional
math to perform their communication dances. I'm hoping some Ph.D. type can
read that article and explain it to me in one syllable words)
I've read in Roman times the owner of a swarm would pursue it banging on a
kitchen pot. If a swarm had no one in pursuit anyone could claim it. In this
day and age I find I often try to disown a swarm because it ends up in
somebody's chimney or wall. What a difference a couple of millennium make.
Ted Hancock
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