Village Elders and Folks,

Allow me then to piggyback on Dr. Wenner’s astute observations—-as to how
he and his eminent colleague were able to sustain swarm-capture colonies
without medicating them at all, a pet project I have been planning on dong
all along after removing the mother of all feral colonies I found in
someone’s barn wall this summer.

The gargantuan feral colony was so humongous that I had to use not one but
two deep brood boxes, with ten frames in each, to house the bees alone.
Using light smoke—-not to scare off the queen—-and a crowbar, I began to
detach the siding off the wall, as thousands of bees in tornadic whirl
winds hovered around me, some kamikaze-banging against my veil while
others hitting the back of my shoulder like pellets.  It took about half a
day to take off the siding.  When done, I felt as if I were peeking into
God’s closet.  The bees have created a grand world of their own, a
microcosmic universe of insect kind, including the nursery, the cops, the
workers, the boys club, and not one but two queens, side by side, although
they did not seem to be in swarming mode.

Dark drones were easily the size of fat grapes to use a hyperbole.  I
found eight slabs of approximately 6' x 2' combs stacked one after another
like a bee-catsle.  The girls were mean and nasty, too—-this particular
trait may have something to do with their longevity.  At one point during
the removal, the elderly lady then came out to take a peek at what I was
doing [rubber-banding the combs onto empty frames, etc.]—-only to get
stung on her head a few times for a quick retreat.  The owner, a
gracefully-aging elderly lady, alleged that the bees had been there for
the last twelve years even before her husband passed away ten years ago: I
could not find any dead-outs nor any sign of reinfestation although I had
no way to verify her statement.  The bees did not bother the people around
the house so they left them alone at the barn-wall until one day her son
got stung.  He happened to be deadly allergic.  Although fully recovered
thanks to quick hospitalization, his son, now in his 30’s, could not visit
his mother any more fearing the bees, a reason why she hollered me on a
Sunday.  Since the lady wanted to taste the wild honey, I made cut-combs,
a la carte, from a slab.  Mixed fifty/fifty between Italians and
Carniolans, the girls gave me about a bucketful of wild honey, the typical
amber elixir common in the plains of Oklahoma.  For me this and other
feral bees I had saved, albeit anecdotal, were a proof positive that
something was going on in nature that I did not think possible.

In light of such findings, it just may be possible to keep bees without
treating them or without having to harangue them with tantric positioning
or without driving them nuts in an attempt to downsize their apartment to
squeeze out the rats.  Let me then suggest a few ways in which we can
procure such invaluable wild stocks available for our non-treatment
experiment worldwide, the very experiment Dr. Wenner speaks of in the
previous thread.

Other than listing your name in county/state Extension Offices,
exterminators’ outfits, and police/fire stations, another possible way
to “monopolize swarm-capture” in your local area is to write an article
about bee-issues and publish it in the local newspaper *at the onset of
your swarm season.*  [Since most of the old-timers quit due to mites,
there aren’t many beekeepers, I found, in my area]  Mine starts from early
April and lasts till late June.  Not only will such an article educate the
mass about the current predicament of our bees—-it is every beekeeper’s
duty to heighten the awareness about the important roles our bees play in
the ecology—-but it will also help you get most of the swarm calls in your
area: the local readership will at least remember your picture in the
paper.  In my case, people did not remember my foreign-sounding name [Yoon
Sik Kim]; yet they did remember that I worked at a local university.

Most of them remembered “the bee guy at St.Greg,” for instance.  Of
course, you can also give bee-talks at local schools: i.e. you become “the
man” when they need someone to call about bees.  [They would now call you
about every stinging insect in the book—-ground hornets, wasps,
bumblebees, and carpenter bees, etc]  Only when strangers started to call
me did I truly realize the power of my media exposure.  During the swarm
season, the excitement of chasing swarms often kept me awake at night and
whenever my body sensed moisture in the warm air during the swarm season,
I could predict that there would be a swarm call on that day, and sure
enough, there was one and sometimes two.  I became so in-tuned with nature
then as I tried to think like bees in swarm-mode although I captured one
crazy bunch when the outside temperature was a little above 40 F!

In 2001, I was able to collect only three swarms on my own; however, this
year I was able to harvest as many as eight because I appeared on a local
paper when I was removing a wall-colony using the funnel method, an event
that eventually led to expose me further to a local TV station [Channel
Five in OKC] later.  Call the local newspaper when/if you plan to remove,
say, a wall-colony or a swarm: they are dying to feature any *sensational*
news.  Sensationalism sells.  In fact, the Channel Five people and I
agreed to do a “Swarm-Chaser” come next spring in lieu of the
ubiquitous “Storm-Chaser,” common in Oklahoma during our two tornado
seasons.

Interestingly, these exposures made me venture into removing bees during
summer when I have time to kill.  Of course, the extra pocket-money
enabled me to purchase more bee-equipment to house new captures.  Chasing
and capturing the swarms were exciting; however, meeting and talking to
people about bees, we all know, were the best part in working bees.
Enthralled, people are just dying to listen to a beekeeper talk,
especially when he shows off a few scientific-sounding facts and figures
about the bees.  [Turn them around to be your loyal customers later by
selling them your best local honey]  The swarm-chasing experience still
bring flood of memory about my first swarm collecting—the awe and the
mystery always associated with a simple swarm, as the child in me refuses
to grow old.  We are, we must realize, a fortunate bunch, working with
these precious little creatures in nature, often listening to our own
heavy-breathing under the veil, often in the wild where there’s nobody
around, soaked in our own sweat, and drowned in maddening silence.  We
have become bees ourselves.

Respectfully,

http://intranet.sgc.edu/people/faculty/yskim/

Yoon Sik Kim