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hello oh yeah yeah do you have some bees
oh gosh okay so are the bees outside are
they hanging on a tree or like where are
the bees at you know as a child I spent
a lot of time crafting and making
miniatures and so I think that that ties
in because I like to look at things in
great detail and I pay very close
attention to what’s happening in my
garden and what’s happening with the
bees it’s all like zooming in and
looking at them closely I tell you what
if you could just send me a photograph
like text me a picture of the the area
that we all have a general idea of what
to bring with me to get them and then
text me the address
I can head right over beekeeping came
into my life at a time where I was
transitioning from being a career woman
to a stay-at-home mom and I was really
looking for an extra level of
fulfillment and something for myself
that I could really dive into other than
you know raising my kids
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and so I started keeping mason bees
which are a little native bees that are
very easy to keep but I loved it so much
and my fascination for bees continue to
grow and I started studying honey bee
keeping and I’d been studying for about
a year when a swarm of honey bees landed
in my front yard and that was the moment
when I realized that I needed to take
the leap and become a beekeeper
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when they’re swarming like what you’re
seeing right now they’re actually pretty
calm and gentle so you guys can just
stand back I would not think of them as
a risk right now
you know once once they land in a spot
they’ll stay there for a little while so
all right since I the most rewarding and
unexpected thing about beekeeping has
been becoming connected to so many new
people and this wonderful beekeeping
community that we have there’s the
connectivity to nature and being able to
share my enjoyment of bees with other
people I think is kind of infectious and
that’s part of my mission to spread that
that joy of living with these
I love swarm caching I call myself a
swarm chaser because I clear my schedule
during the springtime because I’m
waiting for swarm calls to come in they
could either just die off or they can if
the Queen’s not in the hive some of the
worker bees will get the idea to start
laying eggs but none of their eggs are
fertile and it’s it’s a bad situation
when that happens the queen is really
vital to their health every time I go on
a swarm call I learned something new
even though you know my skills at
collecting swarms is improving lady’s
eye I just love that sense of adventure
something new is going to happen you’re
gonna meet new people you get to tell
people about the bees so I don’t know I
guess every swarm is kind of crazy I
should’ve warned you that was gonna
happen so the bees at the bucket are
using their homing pheromone and so that
will signal to the others that the
colony has moved to a different spot and
in time everybody will get the message
and they’ll go to the bucket these ones
right here I mean every bee right here
is Fanning even the ones in here are
doing it best be scooping tool ever when
they’ve outgrown their space and if
they’re healthy they will prepare to
leave by making new Queens and when
those Queens are ready to hatch the old
Queen will leave with about half of the
workers and then they’ll set up a new
hive in a different location and so on a
swarm is like this they haven’t decided
to make this their home they’re just in
transit it’s a resting point for them
this is my other tool for getting likes
worms that are really high up in the air
and this extends to 15 feet and so I
brought this with me thinking well you
know they’re high up I might need to I
might need to use this but I’m glad that
I didn’t have to use it because this is
a lot of work Oh best outcome they’ll
all go to the box and then I’ll come
back in the morning
they’ll all be in the bucket and then I
can take them to their new hive
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these are important because they’re not
only an indicator species of what is
happening in our environment they also
are the backbone of our food chain and
they’re not just supplying food for
humans they’re supplying food for birds
and critters that that feed off the
plants that they pollinate so without
the bees there is no us there is no
ecosystem they’re that critical to our
environment I don’t know how to convey
that in a way that like spells out just
how freaking important they are
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