Didn't I leave the Beehive State?

While It's true I've seen many bee's in my life, I have never seen this many bees at one time.... in my yard! (Okay, this is not my yard, but this picture was taken from my back yard)

This tree is in my neighbors yard. On Sunday we noticed some ruckus coming from over the fence. People were gathering and talking very excitedly... Turns out this tree, that is mere feet from my fence, and right smack in front of my neighbors house.... was full to capacity with a colony of bees... This branch, was weighted down from what they said was about 8 lbs of bees!! Plus.... about a million bees were flying around in the air...

Over the course of the evening we heard kids daring each other to touch them... Men chatting about what manly solutions could take care of the problem and even talk of calling the fire department... (visions of them spraying RAID from their fire hoses sent chills up my back....) but in the the end, a bee keeper came... A little guy with a funny bee keeper hat and big gloves and a small step ladder... he calmly donned his protective gear and stepped up brave on his little ladder... I assumed he was getting a closer look, which sort of impressed me... but what happened next actually took my breath away and I have to say I was a bit stunned.... He took hold of that branch and pulled down and gave it a big shake!! Suddenly a fog of brown filled the air and kids began to shriek and the branch bounced back to it's upright position.. I was watching from my back door, which I quickly closed and made sure my kid was on the inside, where there were no crazy little people taunting a bazillion stinging insects...

I assumed there must be a dead cat under there and the bees were feasting or something.... Little did I know... Turns out, after a little internet research that those bees were just hanging out with the queen... Bee's don't even eat dead cats! Wow, now that's what I call POPULAR!!! What's the deal? Isn't the queen supposed to take them to find a new hive? How would it be to be the queen bee and have all those worker bees at your beck and call...? I'm not going to go on and on about bees, but I suggest that if you (like me) are unfamiliar with the fuzzy buzzy flying little bugs, you should do a quick search and bring yourself up to date, they really are pretty fascinating... But here's what I think.... I think she just stopped for a rest and those little drone bees got all excited and started doing their "bee" thing...

I will, however, share with you one interesting fact I learned while trying to make heads or tails of what happened in that tree.... A male who is lucky enough to score with a queen pays the ultimate price. During mating, his reproductive parts get ripped out of him, and he dies. So.... What is all the fuss about?


“"That buzzing-noise means something. If there's a buzzing noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee. ....
And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey.....
And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.”
~Whinnie The Pooh