Encounter with a Bee Swarm

Jack Deetjen, MD

Recently Jack Deetjen noticed something unusual in an oak tree not far from his country home. On taking a closer look, he realized that the dark object was a large swarm of bees. Dr. Deetjen returned to his house to retrieve a camera and made the photograph of the swarm shown in Fig. 1.

Not long after this photograph was made, bees were found to have moved into one of the wood duck nesting boxes that Dr. Deetjen installed along nearby Geronimo Creek. Those bees recently sent out a swarm of their own.

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