There is never a dull moment at our kula haʻahaʻa! Always “bee” ready for whatever comes your way. Just prior to lunch a swarm of honey bees landed on a tall ti leaf plant just outside of our kindergarten & 1st grade pod. Our caring grounds and custodian crew quickly called upon several bee-keepers in our area. Bee-keeper Jeff Judd of Volcano quickly came to our rescue to take care of our new ʻohana of bees.
According to Mr. Judd, the bees (and LOTS of them) swarmed and followed the queen bee who decided to land in our ti leaf plant. There were so many bees that the weight of them bent the plant! He simply placed a bee box near the hive, added some scented bee balm and immediately, the bees literally “walked” into the box. The queen bee apparently went into the box quickly and the remainder of the bees followed suit.
It was an absolutley incredible thing to see. For those of you with bee phobia, Mr. Judd related that these bees were not in the “attack” mode. Thank goodness! Mrs. Iaea Honda was the first brave soul to want to “hold” the bees in her hand. Mr. Judd rubbed some sweet smelling balm on her hand and she simply scooped up a bundle of bees! Next, one of our favorite groundskeepers, Uncle Kawika, did the same, and finally, Kumu Marcie decided to step on the wild side and scoop up some bees as well. WOW! It was way too cool!
Students from our first grade classes had an opportunity to witness it all – behind the closed glass windows of course! Mr. Judd will leave the bee box overnight to make sure all the remaining bees enter into the box.
So, always “bee” ready for an adventure, don’t “bee” afraid to take a risk and learn and always “bee”have!
Click here to check out a fun video of da beeeeez!
That is SO cool! Thank you for sharing.
It was a bee-autiful spectacle to witness! Quite scary at first, then interesting, entertaining, and especially educational! I think we all – teachers, staff, and students learned greatly from this experience!
Awesome! Wish I was there!
What an incredible story! Pretty nifty. Glad to hear Kumu Marcie took a walk on the wild side – go get ‘um!!
This was a cool video. We liked watching it. The bee swarm was big. We enjoyed watching the bee keeper cut the branch off. Mahalo!
It was pretty cool! and although the bees weren’t in attack mode… always “beeeeeeee-careful!”
I heard all about it! Brayden was so amazed by this!