Unconditional Love

We drove up a steep narrow gravel road to get there. When we finally arrived at the beautiful villa nestled in the woods, we were greeted by stunning views of the Pacific ocean. As we climbed up the few steps leading to the deck, the host pointed to a tiny brown protrusion between 2 wooden planks in the floor. There were little flies hovering around it. It was so tiny we would’ve missed it had he not pointed it out. “We have a bee’s nest under the deck”, he said. “Bees?” I said surprisingly. They were too small for bees, they looked like flying ants to me. “Yes, these are stingless Bees” he explained, “when the housecleaners first saw them, they sprayed them with OFF! Next thing we know, they made a new entrance a couple of planks away”. These tiny bees are called Tetragonisca angustula and are common in Costa Rica. My eyes widened with amazement! I felt a rush of love, like the one I felt when I met the stingless jellyfish in the Red Sea. That day, they were going to move the bees to another location and I got to witness it. How lucky!

The bee guardian arrived to move the nest from under the deck to a safer place on the property. The owners wanted to keep the bees around. Who wouldn’t? Delicious free honey without any danger of stings!

Unscrewing some of the floor boards to access the nest without damaging it was the most time consuming part. Once the nest was in easy sight, still awkward to access but not impossible, the expert bee guardian gently reached with his bare hands and grabbed the bulk of the nest where the queen was. Very carefully, with honey dripping down his arms, he transferred the nest to the bamboo column he brought with him. The thick guadua bamboo consisted of 5 detachable chambers stacked vertically. Guadua angustifolia is a tropical species of giant timber bamboo native to South America.

The bee guardian made sure there is a tiny hole for the bees to go in and out which he covered with a bit of their own wax. That was it. Nature took care of the rest. While we were chatting and socializing, the busy bees already extended their entry hole into a small tunnel. That makes it difficult for other insects to make their way into the nest.

Now the bees have a new home which was placed next to the old location to give the bees time to move. Once the queen has been relocated, the rest of the worker bees follow. It takes a couple of days. After that, they’ll start raising the bamboo column off the floor to gradually migrate it into a tree. As the nest grows inside the bamboo house, they leave the bottom 4 compartments for the bees, and collect honey from the top compartment.

The Bee guardian suggested painting over the place under the deck where the nest used to be in order to get rid of the pheromones so the bees don’t come back to that location.

Those are the best bees ever! Their honey tasted very fruity and sweet. Their wax was chewy with just the right texture and consistency. What a wonderful miracle! Thank you Mother Nature!

#bees #beekeeping #costarica #centralamerica #beehive #stinglessbees #honey #bamboo #bamboobeehive #relocatingbees #tinybees #tetragoniscaangustula #guaduabamboo #guaduaangustifolia #nature #miracle #naturehealing #travel #travelphotography #travelermoment #travelblog #travellife #traveladdict