An educational day in the lives of honeybees

The other day my wife was enjoying one of her usual 6-mile walks along her usual route when she encountered what she thought at first to be some type of floating ashes.

It turned out to be something much more wild — literally.

She suddenly found herself in the middle of a massive swarm of honeybees searching for a safe place to rest.

Never one to fear, she calmly planted herself in the heart of the swarm and began to video the activity on her phone.

Upon arriving home, she coerced me into driving up to see if they were still there, and lo and behold, there were a few still flying around.

However, upon further inspection, we quickly realized the swarm had found its resting spot in a small tree next to the road. The cluster looked like an enormous football shape clinging to the trunk of the tiny tree, a brooding, dark force that looked like it wanted to completely devour the tiny tree.

Because our son Neil is one of a growing population who enjoys raising honeybee hives, we have developed a bit of a fascination with honeybees.

Thus began an adventurous evening that started with a phone call to local honeybee hive expert Arnie Oliver, then went to fellow bee aficionado Reese Uhl and eventually settled into the capable hands of fellow hive enthusiast Ryan Troyer, who made a quick trip from Holmesville to investigate the hive.

The night was truly a PBS nature show, a real “David Attenborough documentary on National Geographic” type of evening, filled with wonderment and education on the lives of honeybees.

Troyer spent more than three hours at the site, tenderly working with the bees, trying to encourage them away from the tree trunk and into his large plastic box so he could relocate the hive.

The trouble was trying to locate the queen bee.

Anyone who knows anything about honeybees knows first and foremost that the entire bee population will do whatever it takes to protect and honor the queen.

The queen is much larger than the worker drone bees and sticks out like a sore thumb, but the issue is once these tiny critters land for a rest, the entire host gathers around the queen and makes sure nothing happens to her.

That means the queen was hidden away in the very middle of the swarm, and she wasn’t taking any phone calls for the night.

Troyer brought in two boards that were coated with some mixture of honey and wax remnants, placing them strategically on the young tree as to coerce as many bees as possible to venture onto the boards because of the alluring scent of the wax and honey mixture left behind from other hive populations.

That worked like a charm, and the drone bees quickly began accumulating on both sides of the two boards. The problem was this hive wasn’t your average-sized hive, with Troyer estimating it was probably a 6-pound hive.

A hive consists of somewhere north of 4,000 bees per pound, meaning the queen was guarded by probably more than 25,000 honeybees bent on providing her with every possible protection.

Thus, even as the boards filled, there were thousands of bees continuing to protect her.

Patiently, Troyer waited her out, and eventually, he was able to locate her and coerce her into the box. Little by little bees began to follow her in, and then like a dam bursting, hundreds of bees made their way into the box to protect the queen.

Throughout the three-plus hours of what I would deem a beautiful Mutual of Omaha feature story, Troyer discussed the beauty, sensitivity and devoted nature of the hive to serve their queen faithfully.

It truly was a beautiful thing to learn about their nature, their faithfulness and their undeniable brilliance to move and live as one living organism, all in the name of serving the queen bee.

While I won’t ever be the guy who states, “Bees are smarter than people,” I will go on record as saying these are incredibly intelligent creatures I admire for their commitment level, work ethic, and willingness to learn a role and play their part for the betterment of the hive.

They served as a good reminder that we humans could learn a thing or two on how to survive and thrive in harmony for the good of the collective.

Little did we know learning how to work together in unity by putting aside personal glory and fame could come as easily as taking a cue from the simple yet beautiful honeybee.