The Bee Saga

John and Deb Bruihler have been volunteering at the Elikya Center since January 15th. They are farmers in Minnesota and John also raises bees and Deb sells the honey. They are here for five weeks to train a group of people how to raise bees so that Elikya can begin selling honey for extra income. John has started teaching a class and most of the orphans have been attending the class to also learn about beekeeping. He and Aaron have recruited two local honey hunters to get some bees to bring to the Elikya Center with the hopes of getting a hive started while John is still here. It is been unsuccessful so far. Last Wednesday John and the students took a hive they had built out of lumber out into the woods near the Elikya Center to see if a swarm would gather on their own.
Friday afternoon I (Sarah) was home alone, cooking food for the weekend and washing dishes all while listening to my IPod. Suddenly I heard an unusual sound outside over the music I was listening to on headphones. I paused the music and stepped out onto our back porch just in time to see a massive swarm of bees heading straight toward my house! I stepped back inside, closed the door and listened as the swarm flew over our roof. I went to the front porch to see where the bees had gone and looked to my right where about twenty-five younger kids were playing soccer at the entrance of the Elikya Center. The kids started shouting, running, throwing dirt and swatting at the air. A man who was also standing outside began to shout at them to be careful and he grabbed Mowa’s two-year-old son and carried him back behind Mowa’s house. The commotion continued for about 10 more minutes and then died down. The children moved their soccer game a little further down the parking lot/soccer field and continued to play.


I called Aaron and Sam to let them know what had happened and that there may still be some bees hanging out in the palm tree in the parking lot. When Aaron, Sam, John and Deb arrived, John found that the whole swarm of bees had gathered on one of the tree branches. Deb hurried to the guest house where she remained a prisoner until the next morning because she is deathly allergic to bee stings. I went up to check out the bees with three other women who are students and they quickly began talking about what the bees were up to. I was happy to hear that they had already retained so much information after just one week of beekeeping classes. John grabbed a beekeeping suit, a ladder and a bag and began to collect the bees so he could transport them to the hive that was set out in the woods about 10 minutes away.

It took about 2 minutes for the exciting news to spread and a crowd of about 20 neighbors and students gathered near the tree. John struggled to handle the palm branch while Aaron worked the smoker to keep the bees calm (which didn’t prove to be too successful). As I watched from a distance at my back porch, I was particularly entertained by the random motions of crowd members when a bee advanced toward them. A perfectly calm person would suddenly burst into a run and begin flailing their arms uncontrollably. A couple times the entire crowd would back away from the tree in a synchronized movement.

Once John captured most of the bees in the sack, he headed off to the woods with two boys leading the way and most of the crowd following. I watched the crowd trail off into the jungle as the sun was beginning to set. About 25 minutes later everyone returned with a handful of bee stings and the sad news that the hive they had placed in the jungle just two days before had been stolen. There was much disappointment in the faces of the students as they returned to their homes.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of bees buzzing outside my bedroom window. John discovered that several bees remained and some were hanging out in the same tree. So, he put some beeswax on pieces of lumber and placed them over the top of a bucket to attract the bees, which worked. He and a few students headed out to the jungle again with the bucket. For the duration of the morning, we observed a continuation of the random swatting, shouting and running I had witnessed the night before. After a few hours it appeared most of the bees had left. On Sunday morning John went out to check the bucket only to find that all the bees had left.

We have a feeling this bee story is not over and though there have been disappointments along the way, we are quite amazed that the swarm showed up right here in the middle of the Elikya Center and gave the students a hands-on learning experience. I am sure there is more to come…