When I heard that we had bees in the back yard I was not expecting this. Several thousand honey bees had gathered on a branch in our pear tree. Massed together they were the size of two basketballs. At first we thought there was a hive but it turned out to be all bees. We called our neighbors Walter and Rachael because we had seen them working with bees before. They came over to have a look and decided that one of their queen bees had returned. They set to work right away gathering the bees and relocating them to their bee boxes.
Walter would place a box on top of the ladder and brush the bees into it. He was trying to catch the queen bee. If the queen bee went into the box, the others would follow. The bees were full with honey so they were not aggressive. It was daytime and many of the bees were still out gathering pollen. That night we returned to have a look and another large group was back in the tree. They seemed pretty quiet after a hard day of pollen gathering. According to Rachael and Walter, these bees would soon find their way to the bee boxes where the queen was.
We ended up learning a lot about bees and their place in our food chain. They play a huge role in the distribution of pollen and as Walter put it, "Everything you eat that comes from the ground depends on pollination in some way."
Above is a typical apiary where these bees will be kept. Below is a photo of a typical honeycomb you might find inside the boxes.
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