Beekeeper Rescues A Swarm Of Bees With Her Bare Hands And Gives Them A New Queen Bee, Goes Viral With 13.5M Views
20Kviews
Bees have been getting quite a lot of attention lately as this time of the year means National Bee Day. It all started with a mesmerizing photoshoot of Angelina Jolie covered in bees for the cover of National Geographic as a homage to Richard Avedon, and raising awareness of these vital insects in our world.
As many eyes were on bees already, this video emerging from the depths of TikTok showing a professional beekeeper scooping handfuls of insects into their new home went absolutely viral with 13.5m views and counting. People online are indeed loving the fearless beekeeper, Erika Thompson from Texas Beeworks, just casually handling the swarm and sharing some really cool facts about them.
More info: TikTok
Erika Thompson, a professional beekeeper, was called to remove a swarm of bees from under an umbrella
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Erika, who is the founder of Texas Beeworks, which is based in Austin, Texas, embarked on a mission to preserve, protect, and increase bee populations throughout the state. She was called to remove a swarm of bees that settled under an umbrella. Erika explains that “when bees are in swarms like this, they are looking for a new place to live,” in the meantime just casually dipping her hand into the live ball of insects.
And she actually moved them handful by handful with her bare hands
Image credits: texasbeeworks
According to Erika, the bees are actually very passive as they have nothing that they would want to protect, such as food, a hive, or baby bees, but they should have a queen bee. With each handful of bees the beekeeper was taking off the umbrella, she was trying to spot the queen bee. Erika carried on scooping the bees onto the box she brought, but had no luck in finding the queen bee even when she was nearly done.
These bees were harmless as they had nothing that they needed to protect
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Erika was looking for the queen bee with each scoop of live insects she moved, but no luck
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Turns out, this was quite a rare case of a queen-less swarm. Erika pointed out that the colony would not be able to survive without a queen and luckily she had an extra queen bee on her and was able to give it to her rescued bunch. And the bees, as excited as bees could probably bee, were rushing to meet the new queen. Erika explained that if the bees don’t approve of the new queen, they simply kill her, but this turned out not to be the case.
But as any ninja beekeeper probably would, Erika had a spare queen in her pocket
Image credits: texasbeeworks
The bee colony has to accept the new queen or else they try to kill her
Image credits: texasbeeworks
The queen bee is kept in a box closed with a candy which the bees chew through
Image credits: texasbeeworks
The box that the queen bee is kept in has one of its ends stopped by a piece of candy. If the bees approve of the new queen, they ‘save’ her by eating through the candy and joining her with the rest of the colony. As soon as everyone had met the new big momma, the bees started sending a signal to the remaining bees and calling them to move to the new spot so Erika just watched them move by themselves to their new home.
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Once the majority of the colony has moved, the rest of the bees get into the new hive by themselves
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Erika took the bees to their new home where they are safe and protected
Image credits: texasbeeworks
The video finishes with Erika checking if the queen bee had been accepted by the rest of the colony. Once all of the bees had finally moved inside the new hive, the fearless beekeeper took them to her apiary “so that the bees can continue to do the important work they do in a place that’s safer for them and for people.”
Image credits: texasbeeworks
Here is the whole video of Erika’s adventure of rescuing the swarm of bees
@texasbeeworks##bees ##nature ##summer ##tiktok ##fyp♬ original sound – Erika Thompson
Video credits: texasbeeworks
And here are the comments that were ranging from funny to hilarious, but definitely spot-on
20Kviews
Share on Facebook
it's the carrying an extra queen bee for me
Well, she's a beekeeper. It's her job. If a plumber turned up and had a wrench, would you be surprised? She was prepared, that's all.
Yeah but we take precautions and have gear for every profession. It is kind of shocking to see this going on without those beekeeper suits.
She had a queen bee in her pocket. I don't dare to imagine what might be in her purse
Lipstick, wallet, piranha, phone, scorpion...
This is amazing, like, she just had a queen on her. How does one just have an extra queen? because where did this queen come from? What happened to their queen? So many questions.
You can buy them. There are queen breeders that raise queens for when a hive loses a queen or you split a hive to make a new colony. They send them in the mail.
In the *mail*? Woe betide the idiot who porch-grabbed a queen bee.
The post office calls you to pick them up they don’t deliver you can also order a package of bees through the mail also.
You can buy them, raise them. It's quite likely that their queen died while the swarm was moving. It isn't uncommon for beekeepers called to a swarm to grab up a caged queen as they head on out.
it's the carrying an extra queen bee for me
Well, she's a beekeeper. It's her job. If a plumber turned up and had a wrench, would you be surprised? She was prepared, that's all.
Yeah but we take precautions and have gear for every profession. It is kind of shocking to see this going on without those beekeeper suits.
She had a queen bee in her pocket. I don't dare to imagine what might be in her purse
Lipstick, wallet, piranha, phone, scorpion...
This is amazing, like, she just had a queen on her. How does one just have an extra queen? because where did this queen come from? What happened to their queen? So many questions.
You can buy them. There are queen breeders that raise queens for when a hive loses a queen or you split a hive to make a new colony. They send them in the mail.
In the *mail*? Woe betide the idiot who porch-grabbed a queen bee.
The post office calls you to pick them up they don’t deliver you can also order a package of bees through the mail also.
You can buy them, raise them. It's quite likely that their queen died while the swarm was moving. It isn't uncommon for beekeepers called to a swarm to grab up a caged queen as they head on out.