Henny Penny Farmette

My beekeeper neighbor was working in his backyard this morning as I typed away on my novel. My office overlooks the garden and the fence between our properties.

Italian honeybee

Then . . . I heard the familiar clanging of a spoon against a pan. I leaped from my desk chair and ran to the kitchen. There, I grabbed a pot lid and wooden spoon and joined the banging at the fence between our properties.

I could see the brown cloud of honeybees in the air swarming near his apricot tree.  We banged away for a while. It’s a bee-disorienting action that compels them to alight in a nearby tree or bush. “Have they landed yet,” I yelled. He replied that they had.

Thus begins the 2016 swarming season for the environs of the Henny Penny Farmette.