Things have been hectic this week so this column may be a little shorter than normal and completely scattered. 

Two weeks ago my daughter and granddaughter moved to Italy leaving their three cats behind with us until arrangements for their transportation could be made. 

Vicki and I used to have cats, but after our last one passed away in 2021, we didn’t plan on having anymore. So now we have three cats that are all depressed because their mommies are not here. Two of the cats are older and relatively lazy, so they don’t really bother messing up the house. 

The third however is only two with the energy of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. His name is Seymour and he thinks he rules the roost. Heaven forbid a fly should get in the house as Seymour will go crazy trying to get it. Jumping off furniture into thin air trying to grasp it and knocking over anything in his wake. 

Seymour has also learned how to open our sliding screen door to the patio in the backyard. Last week I had the glass door open and put the screen door across to let in the nice cool night air while I was working on my computer. An hour later I got up to go to bed and saw the door had been opened about four inches, just enough for a cat to slip out. 

Sure enough I did a head count and Seymour was missing. These cats have never been outdoors, they are inside cats all the way. So I got a flashlight and Lily, my Australian Shepard, and went outside to look. Well Lily went to chase the local deer that were in our yard like she does ever night and I walked around looking for Seymour. I found him peering out at me from under a tarp covering my log splitter but he had no interest in coming back inside. He was having the time of his life, until I said to Lily, get Seymour. Lily lives to herd and she had him back inside in less than fifteen seconds. 

Crisis averted, kind of. You see Seymour wasn’t the only thing that came back in that night, Seymour had passengers, fleas. Luckily we found this out the very next day and went to the store for a quick remedy. We don’t have carpet in our house, so the only thing that needed treatment was Seymour. The other two cats were fine and Lily has her Seresto collar. 

Topic number two, last Friday I get a call about a swarm of bees on the ground. A building had been taken down and I guess the bees had a hive in the foundation. The caller said they got a hold of an old bee box and put it near the swarm so that hopefully they would go in. I went out first thing Saturday morning and there were bees in the box but still a bunch on the ground, probably protecting the queen. 

So I tried to get the bees on the ground into another box that I had brought, but they were having none of it. So I moved the original box closer to the ground swarm and they started to march into the box. I figured I would give them another day and came back to get them on Sunday morning before the sun came up. 

Now I usually catch bees in one of my swarm traps which are sealed up with just one opening, so that all I have to do is tape over the opening and load them into my Suburban. Since this was an old box that I was not familiar with I brought a sheet along just in case. The sheet was to cover the box after I had it taped and in the Suburban, this way any bees that managed to get out would still be trapped and it is a good thing I did. 

That old box was like swiss cheese and even with tape over every hole I saw they still found ways to get out. Luckily with the sheet only four made it up to the front seat and with the windows down were quickly evacuated. I got the bees situated on Sunday, but Monday I had to open the box and put frames inside for the bees to make their honeycomb on. 

I also put another beehive next to them, eventually I will move their frames from the old box into this newer one, but for now they are doing fine. Now rule of thumb among beekeepers is “A swarm past July, let them fly”, meaning don’t waste your time because they won’t survive the winter. 

But since I don’t have any bees right now anyway, I’m gonna give it a shot. If they are going to die anyway, I might as well give them the best chance they have at surviving. If Joe, the caller, didn’t give me a call to come and get them, they would probably be dead already. 

So far I’ve been feeding the girls sugarwater every day and they seem to be acclimating to their new home. It will all depend on whether or not the queen can get some new brood hatching before the current worker bees start to die off in less than twenty-one days at this point.  

  Let’s see if next week is as crazy as last week. I hope not...