Bee-utiful!

Saturday night, I was driving back from my parents house when my "Not Imaginary" husband called me and told me to pull over. He sent me at picture of thousands of bees on the fence post in our back yard. "It's a swarm. From what I've researched, there is new queen hiding in the middle of this, and the workers are keeping her warm as the drones are flying around to find a new home to start their hive." Swarms normally only stay in an area for a few hours until the drones find a new home. Troy was lucky to come upon this amazing sight.

When I got home, Troy and I decided that if the bees were still around in the morning, we'd see if we could catch them and start our own hive. We have tons of new fruit and nut trees that would benefit from the colony, and ever since I watched Fried Green Tomatoes as a kid, I've wanted to be a bee charmer.

I was up at the crack of dawn Sunday morning, and I was excited to see that we still had bees on our post. I ran back into the house and woke Troy up.

     "Where are we even going to get a bee box, Rachel?" Troy said as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes. Troy's always been the rational one.
     "Atwoods has them! I'll going in a few minutes and be there when the door opens. EEKKK! We're getting bees!"
     "Don't get your hopes up," Troy said as he stumbled into the kitchen in search of coffee, "they could leave as soon as it warms up."

After a failed attempt at finding a bee box at the Atwoods in Lawton, I was able to purchase one in Chickasha. I flew home with my box, two veiled hats, gloves, and high hopes that we would be able to get the bees. While bees are swarming, their are filled with honey from the old hive and are extremely docile. All a person needs to do is grab them with their hands, and gently place them in them bee box. This of course sounds easier than it is. What I didn't want were 2,000 bees flying at my face, veil or no veil. Aiden really wanted to help with the process, so I reluctantly gave up my spot collecting bees, and he suited up with Troy.

Troy and Aiden had their gear on, the box ready, and all they had to do was grab the swarm and put them in the box.
   "I can't do it!" Troy said while doing my version of the "pee-pee/snake dance." "I though I could, but I hate bugs as it is."

I told Aiden to unsuit, and I got in the veil and gloves on, excited that I was back in the ring to take on the swarm. Troy asked me if I was really going to do it.
     "Really? you can handle this? they're going to be flying at our faces and everything."

I smiled at him and started touching the swarm. It was soft, and almost moldable, like play dough. I then summoned up the courage and began pulling the bees away from the post. Immediately, the bees flew into my face and the clump that was at one time stuck to each other were now stuck to my glove!
While my hands were going towards the box to get rid of the bees, my feet were already running to the house. Troy yelled at me to calm down as he too was jumping up in down. I then took another handful and slowly lowered them to the box.

Bees were on my pants, my hat, my shoes, but none of them stung me. Within a few minutes we had the colony placed in the box and settled in a safe spot. I was excited. I had just handled thousands of bees and came out without a single sting! I checked on them a few times throughout the day, and so far, they are all happy and settling into their new home.

What is something that you have done that people were shocked to see you do? This can be anything from a silly stunt or something amazing, to people not knowing something about you.