50,000 Bees!

Meet the swarm of bees that landed in our cherry tree soon after we moved here. One day, while I was mowing, this cloud of bees came out of nowhere and began to congregate in the tree over my head. Never having seen a swarm like this before, you can imagine how quickly I flew off the seat of the tractor and headed for the house! We got out the phone book and called a honey farm to invite them to come on out and get them!


The bee keepers who came out to collect them estimated that there were about 50,000 bees. Wow!
This husband and wife team (who happened to both be teachers) taught us all about bees, hives, honey, and so much more. We learned they are fourth generation bee keepers who manage several hundred hives throughout our state to pollinate apples, melons, strawberries, cucumbers and pumpkins. The boys got to hold a bee (dead, of course), a piece of comb, and were given honey straw treats to eat! How cool is that?


They parked their truck beneath the branch and put the hive on the roof of the truck. Then they simply shook the branch. The bees dripped into the hive and the rest crawled into it from the roof of the truck. Pretty neat to watch! They received only one sting from a bee they accidentally crushed while lifting the hive off the truck. Not a single other bee stung anyone as we all stood by and watched.


But here is the really cool part. They asked us if we had found a church yet in the area, described theirs, and proceeded to invite us out the next Sunday. It seemed to have all the makings of being the kind of church for which we were looking. To us, this was an unbelievable answer to prayer. We had spent the previous few weeks picking churches out of the phone book and, with each one we visited, had become more discouraged at how hard it was. In spite of my friends telling me it doesn't work this way, I decided to pray that somehow God would allow someone to just walk onto our property and invite us to the right church.


That was five years ago, and we still attend and are blessed by that church. At the time that swarm of bees landed in the branch above my head, I would certainly not have considered it as being sent by God. He never ceases to amaze us with how He answers prayers and meets our needs!

By the way, if you are interested in some great honey products, you can visit Hunter's Honey Farm on the web at http://www.huntershoneyfarm.com/.