My neighbors started two bee hives this spring with freshly built hives and strong populations. Dan added a super to both hives about a month ago, and second set two days ago. The hives were thriving.

Dan left for a canoe trip on the Rogue River right after adding the second supers. I was behind my house the next day when I heard buzzing coming from Dan’s and Lise’s backyard. One of the hives was swarming. According to David Stucky a young hive doesn’t usually swarm in its first spring. But this one was.

The swarm gathered itself in another neighbor’s ash tree on a limb about 20 feet up. Lise and I caucused. We phoned. We speculated. Then, I went home, and emptied my clothes drawer looking for a pair of trousers that would work: too snug, too dark, too thin. “Arg, I’ll be stung for sure.” When I was dressed, had an empty hive, some gloves, a bee veil, a large white canvas tarp, I stood looking up at the swarm.

Lise was gathering buckets, boxes, tape, sugar sprayers, advice, her bee gear, ropes, and trying not to hyperventilate. I’m a get it done type, and Lise is a let’s think this out and have everything ready type.

I started climbing, clearing branches as I went. Then I sawed slowly, making a partial cut on the top of the branch the bees clung to (after I’d sprayed them liberally with sugar water). The branch slowly hinged downward just as I’d hoped. After tying a rope to the bee’s branch and securing the other end to a nearby branch, I cut through entirely and held the bee branch in my gloved hand.

Unfortunately, as I lowered it with the rope, I realized I hadn’t thought to remove the branches in the way near the ground. Darn! Lise wasn’t able to tell which branches I wanted moved so I kept lowering. About a quarter of the bees were brushed off onto the tarp.

I raced down the tree. Lise hurried for the box, soft bee brush, something to rap the limb with (all of which I’d forgotten to ask for before climbing), and loppers, or not, panic brought on indecisiveness. We got most of the bees from the limb and the tarp into the box. We poured them into the empty, waiting hive and put its lid back on.

However, a small cluster of bees was gathering in the grass under the ash tree. I had a bad feeling. Could we brush them up, could we clip the grass, could we stick a shovel under them and gently pour them in? Did we have the queen? We had a beer.

The bees departed for a second time. We’d failed. Well, sort of. We learned we could reach and remove a swarm of bees in a difficult spot. I didn't fall out of the tree. Nobody got stung. We did collect the bees and put them in a hive.

We cleaned up our sticky equipment and my son climbed up to retrieve the rope. Our adventure started at 10 am and ended around 4 pm. We fell into our beds exhausted, but with a twinge of triumph. Something new to add to the resume.