hold this one right under the other, and put the lid on it when the bees fall in. We climbed the ladders and positioned ourselves. Rev gave the limb a shake. “There they go,” said someone from down below. Many bees fell into the bucket, but hundreds didn’t.


“Now they’re starting to move,” I heard someone say. The voice seemed far away. Bees started flying, buzzing, covering my veil, my gloves, my clothes.


I tried to absorb all the sensations while simultaneously trying, with slow haste, to get the lid over the top of the bucket. I did, but it was upside down. I’d screwed-up and I didn’t want to turn it over for fear the bees would escape. While I tried to work calmly, internally it was a non-Zen zone. I was experiencing a major adrenaline rush. I climbed down the ladder with the bucket and confessed about the lid. Rev nonchalantly turned it over and sealed it. I looked at him through a veil blotched with bees. He was covered in them too, there were bees flying all around us, on top of the buckets, on the ladders, on the ground. How many did we get, I wondered. It seemed like a zillion still buzzed around.


We were the tamperers, in the middle of everything, and wild with the excitement of it.


Rev turned on the shop vac and began vacuuming bees off me, then I did the same for him. I told him about the bee inside his veil, near the back of his head; he said he


knew. There wasn’t anything either one of us could do about it anyway, not yet. It felt weird to suck up bees with a vacuum. I tried to be as gentle yet as swift as possible. My emotions were definitely mixed—I was aware that some were probably being injured, but I was also determined to do my part as a member of the homo sapien bee team. “I’m going to vacuum the rest of the bees out of the tree,” said Rev.


I looked up to see they’d returned to form several very small clumps. Rev climbed up the ladder and I held the machine while he worked. When he came down again, we repeated the process of vacuuming each other, then the containers and ladders. I saw the many bee corpses on the ground, on the ladder and on my clothes. Some were squished, but many seem to have died for no apparent reason. Their bodies looked abnormally large, full and taunt, just like they’d described. I felt very sorry for them and said so, asking how many they guessed had been killed. “We’ve probably got about five thousand—what’s a few here and there?” was Rev’s sentiment. He was ob- viously excited, like me. In spite of the carnage, I shamelessly thought: This was fun! I want to do this again! I was back to age six. It was all about the rush. The rush of facing nature and claiming superiority over it. Purely animal, even more purely, human. We were the tamperers, in the middle of everything, and wild with the excitement of it. A few bees flew around while I helped Rev pack up. He had already shed his gloves and his hat. Then I went back to the garage to take off my costume. My long hair was partially in my face, had been since I’d descend- ed the tree the first time, and I hadn’t been able to push it away. The thrill had died down by then. I had had enough of the bee suit.


By the time I dressed, Rev was gone and Tony had returned to the garage. He confirmed my suspi- cions that the capture was messy. “If we’d waited awhile, they would’ve formed one large swarm that was longer. You can usually just work your bucket right under them, practically place the whole swarm in it. And I give the branch one good hit, I don’t shake it. The best way to do it is to cut the branch off and bring it straight to the hive. That way you’d probably have no deaths, but of course I couldn’t do that here.” “What about the vacuuming, does it hurt them?” “Naw, not really.”


“And what’s the likelihood we got the queen amid all that?” “Oh, about 99.9%.” “Really?” “Oh, yeah.”


I asked about Rev, who had taken the bees and left.


“I just met him last night,” Tony said. “I joined the Beekeepers Association about four years ago and last night was the first meeting I’ve been able to attend. They’ve always fallen on dates when I’ve had other engage- ments. By the way, Rev’s a reverend.”


Winter/Spring 2012 greenwomanmagazine.com 45


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