Friday afternoon temperatures hit the mid-80s, so I put several inches of water in a plastic swimming pool for Val. She immediately came over, took a drink then lowered herself into the liquid and sat there as if she was a Persian princess waiting on her attendants to come bathe her. Allowing that Val is of mixed parentage, has a bad eye and was found on a gravel road (dragging a chain), her attitude is, well, charming.
I didn’t see what happened next; I was on the phone, but Val jumped out of the pool and started running laps around the yard. Something to do with a honeybee probably; maybe she “drank” one.
The bees swarmed on April Fool’s Day, two days earlier.
Beth had sent me a text that morning saying a mother possum with six babies was out near the back fence. “I’ve put up Val,” she continued. It’s detail that gives veracity to a tall tale. I dashed home.
An hour later when she called to say the bees had swarmed and were clustered on a banana shrub, I figured it had to be so.
Rather than capture them immediately, I fired up the smoker and went into the hives to try to figure out which had swarmed. That was a mistake.
Before I could get back to them, the escapees took flight. Feeling helpless, I watched as the black cloud of honeybees ascended, then disappeared.
When hives become overcrowded — as they often do in early spring — the queen leaves with part of the hive. The swarm attaches en masse to a limb or tree trunk — I once retrieved a swarm from a tombstone in Friendship Cemetery. (I wish I’d noted the name on the stone; perhaps he or she had some connection with the apian world.)
This is not as farfetched as it may sound. It is a beekeeping custom when a keeper of bees dies, someone goes and tells the bees.
When their scouts reach consensus about their new habitat, the swarm flies to that place and sets up housekeeping.
As I do in perplexing beekeeping situations, I called technical support, otherwise known as Bud Watt. Bud is one of those distinct characters peculiar to the South. After stints as a schoolteacher and catfish farmer, Bud found happiness as a beekeeper. “Raising catfish was boring,” he explained, “but I ain’t ever been bored with bees.”
His comments about school teaching are best not repeated.
In the spring issue of Catfish Alley a year ago, we had a piece on an annual gathering of beekeepers that takes place at Bud’s home in Cooksville in southeast Noxubee. A swarming of beekeepers, if you will.
“Best thing to do is get them in a box right away,” Bud said. “They might stay on that limb 10 minutes or they might be there two days.”
The backyard is coming to life. An old flowering quince — a favorite nectar source for honeybees and playground for songbirds — is covered with reddish pink blooms. The two “forest pansy” redbuds are putting out deep-red, heart-shape leaves. You can eat the blooms of the redbud; they taste a bit like raw peanuts. Would make a nice garnish for a salad.
Actually, dozens of flowers in Southern gardens are eatable. An article on a website called treehugger.com lists 42 of them. On that same website I stumbled across an article titled, “How to keep ants out of your house naturally.” (With cinnamon.)
As I write this Friday evening, Beth called from another room. Somehow a frog had gotten past our two cats and was hopping down the front hall, a first. I cornered it under a piano, caught it, took it outside and released it into a flowerbed.
Standing in the yard I could see lightning and hear thunder in the distance. The roar of cars at the speedway had grown silent. Soon there would be rain. Blessed water to nurture the arrival of this most beautiful of seasons.
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 49 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.