Once or twice a year I return to a beehive I've followed for the last four years. It's in a fairly small but comfortable park with trees much older than the surrounding neighbourhood. Crosswoods Park is also the location of the abandoned bunnies: each year their numbers grow just after Easter, increasing thru the summer months, and are either culled back or hunted down by the wildlife. This park is bordered by a small creek with a completely wild reparian area full of ducks, frogs, and insects. The insects include the Crosswoods beehive.
The knarly old oak(?) tree has a hole that opens at just about the highest point I can reach over my head. The main (and only) entrance is big enough for my to stick my hand in but I can't reach high enough to do more than put a camera into it. As long as the weather is cool and there are no bees at the opening fanning air into the hive, the bees ignore me and my camera. If fact, they ignore the camera so well they run into it numerous times per minute. To get shots in the past I have actually had to let the camera flash less than a inch from most of the bees and within 3 inches of both larva and honey production. That scared me more than anything else. A sudden burst of light and heat into the faces of dozens of bees with stingers didn't seen a great way to endear myself. Things have changed this year as I now use a Nikon S6000 'pocket rocket'. With it's control over ISO, I can get great macro stills and video without risking the eyes of my hosts. ;-)
The audio is notable for three things. First, I'm narrating badly and mentioning previous takes from before the final clips were chosen. Second is that I start whispering. Why would someone with a hand in a beehive whisper? I've come up with a myriad of mindless explanations but I'll just let you come to your own conclusions. I don't know why. Finally, the noise coming from the hive is almost as overwhelming as the bees flying and walking too close for the camera to focus. (Remember, I am inches away from the BOTTOM of the hive, much closer to the crawling bees, and literally blocking the way with the palm of my camera hand to steady the clips). The repeated smacking sound you hear is bees forgetting by the score. As soon as the camera hears wings, it starts capturing audio. When the buzz gets closer, the sound gets much louder. But when bees actually impact with the camera body, the smack makes the microphone drop the recording level for a moment. There's never 30 seconds that pass without that cycle repeating many times. You'd think that SOMEBODY would to the bee-dance and warn the rest not to blindly fly right into a solid object. Nope. But this bit of strangeness is surpassed by the fact that not a single bee has ever flown into my hand. None have crawled on it either. It goes without saying this is all but impossible but the only reason why I trust this hive with my hide. DO NOT THINK YOU ARE EVER IN THE SAME SITUATION. YOU CAN GET STUNG ONCE, TWICE, OR HUNDREDS OF TIMES. YOU CAN GET SICK OR DIE EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT ALLERGIC TO BEE STINGS.
So, that's it. A better video of what I've shot for years. Bees all look alike to me, all the workers anyway. No way for me to know if some have been butting their heads on previous cameras. But I feel certain this hive knows me. After all, no other human pops up for a few hours to block progress and whisper at them. Oh. Maybe that's what's up with 'the whispering thing'. First person to type "Bee Whisperer" get a FREE image of the honeycomb in extreme macro. ;-)
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5:52
Moving the nucleus of Honeybees to the Beehaus.by baytree1308 views
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