North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Matt Demmon <mdemmon@gmail.com>]

Sounds like a swarm with a queen that got distracted by the sweet fruit!

-matt

On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 4:10 PM, William C. Garthright
<billg@inebraska.com> wrote:
> This is a bit off-topic, but I thought it might be of interest. I live
> in town, and I usually see a few honey bees in my yard in the spring,
> but only a few. Last year, my elderly mother fell and ended up in the
> hospital just as my Concord grapes got ripe. So I didn't get them picked
> right away...
>
> By the time I got around to picking them, they were overly ripe - still
> good (especially sweet, in fact), but badly split. They were also
> covered - thickly covered - in honey bees. I've never seen so many bees
> in my life! I don't know where they came from. The bees seemed to be
> very docile, though, when I went out to pick the grapes. I carefully
> reached in and grabbed each bunch of grapes (trying to avoid actually
> grabbing a bee), cut the stem, and lightly tossed the bunch into a
> plastic bin on the ground. Some of the bees just rode along the whole way.
>
> But as I continued to pick, they seemed to become more agitated. There
> was more and more buzzing from the bees around me. Of course, there were
> fewer grapes left on the vines, too, so the bees became even more
> concentrated. Eventually,... I lost my nerve. I figured I'd pick the
> rest of them at sundown, when I expected the bees to leave.
>
> Well, there *were* fewer bees as it started to get dark, I guess, but it
> was also a lot harder to see what I was doing. Pretty soon, I was going
> mostly by feel, and there were still a LOT of bees around. (I thought
> they went back to the hive at night???) And note that, a few days
> before, a man in Omaha had died of bee stings - from honey bees,
> according to the news - while mowing his lawn. So I was kind of nervous,
> still. Then I reached in, grabbed a bunch of grapes, and brought it out
> to find the biggest bee I've ever seen in my life! It looked similar to
> the honey bees, but about two inches long! Well, thinking about it, I
> suppose it wasn't quite *that* big, but it really was the biggest bee
> I've ever seen, no question about that. Maybe an inch and a half long?
> It was a veritable giant of a bee, anyway.
>
> I set the bunch of grapes on the ground, and gently pushed the monster
> bee off with a stick. It didn't seem to mind. But I decided I'd had
> enough of picking grapes for that day.  :-)
>
> I ended up picking the rest the next day. No sign of the huge bee, and I
> never did get stung.
>
> Bill
> Lincoln, NE (zone 5)
>
> --
> Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying. - Fran
> Lebowitz
>
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-- 
-matt demmon
photos: www.flickr.com/photos/farmerdemmon