September 16

Bees rescued from 15th Ave. bridge are on the fly

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Has anybody seen a swarm of bees flying around Maple Leaf?

The lost swarm was from a large hive that was rescued in June by Maple Leaf resident Michael Neukirchen from underneath the bridge on 15th Avenue Northeast that’s now under construction.

Michael Neukirchen is a Maple Leaf beekeeper.

When Neukirchen first noticed the stream of bees coming and going from underneath the bridge, the contractors already working there were aware of the hive and, for their sakes as well as for the bees’, were more than happy to let Neukirchen take the hive.

The foreman was even a former beekeeper himself, and helped another area beekeeper remove the bees with an elaborate vacuum-powered bee catcher, while Neukirchen got to work breaking up the comb in chunks so he could bring it back for the bees’ new home.

In the end, they estimated the hive contained about 60,000 bees, while the comb indicated that the hive was at least 10 years old, if not decades older. However, the comb was also so old that some of it was decaying, which caused the bees Neukirchen had brought back to his home in north Maple Leaf to swarm four days later.


Neukirchen holds a piece of the comb from the 15th Avenue bridge hive.

Don’t worry, there aren’t 60,000 bees now swarming around Maple Leaf. Neukirchen only brought home half the hive, and when that hive swarmed, half of the bees ended up in his neighbor’s tree. Although Neukirchen managed to move those bees into an extra hive that is now happily buzzing away in Georgetown, the other half disappeared.

“There was still a little colony here, but they moved away,” Neukirchen said.

He hopes the bees have made a new home for themselves somewhere in the neighborhood, but if they’ve done so to the dismay of any of our neighbors, he’ll happily rescue you from them. But he’d prefer not to move the bees if they’re living in peace with you.

“It’s better for the bees to remain where they are,” Neukirchen explained. “The place that they find for themselves are generally ideal.”

For avid Maple Leaf Life readers, we should note that Neukirchen is the husband of Rachel Marcotte, the artist who designed the turtle painted recently at a Wallingford intersection. Which is how we found out that his bees went missing when he posted this:

Rachel’s husband is very proud of her efforts and of her other, though of a primarily botanical nature, art.
He also asks a favour of his Mapleleaf neighbors: that they report to him, should they happen to notice such, of the location of one his honeybee hives – that has recently absconded from its comfortable little home. It is likely that they have taken-up housekeeping in one of his neighbour’s sheds, attics or trees. This hive would be an offshoot of one of the hives that was rescued, fairly recently, from under our 15th Ave. bridge. A reward for their location will be paid for with a pint ot honey.

A pint of honey for your efforts!

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