Local keepers bee-lieves in helping
When a local homeowner discovered a hive of bees on her property, she turned to Facebook in search of a beekeeper to rehome the vital pollinators.
Alicia Caldwell’s 7-yearold son, Anderson, noticed the hive in a tree in their Coronado Street driveway. The colony took up much of the branch, and Caldwell decided to ask a Facebook group for Jamestown residents about whether the honeybees could be moved to a new home.
“I had seen a few other people post similar things about swarms, so I thought that would be a good knowledge base,” she said. “Folks in town know folks in town who can take care of things.”
After posting her query on June 20 — “Does anyone have a recommendation for someone to give these honeybees a new home?” — Caldwell was connected to Michelle and Rich Smith by their daughter-in-law, Kelly Grennan-Smith, a local schoolteacher.
Grennan-Smith sent Caldwell a message about rehoming the swarm from Coronado to her in-laws’ home on North Main Road.
Rescuing swarms for the Smiths, who have been beekeeping since 2016, was nothing new.
“We brought one bee box and some frames thinking we could just swoop the bees up,” Rich said.
The couple’s interest in bees started after Michelle registered for a beekeeping class at the University of Rhode Island. Although she had never kept bees, her father did in Florida.
“We went to the class and we really liked it,” Rich said. “So, we ordered a couple hives and that’s how it started. We don’t care too much about the honey. We’re more about keeping the bees alive.”
When the Smiths arrived, the swarm had already started building a hive with combs, which meant they wouldn’t be able to just take the entire swarm in single movement. Instead, they had to cut the limbs and get two more boxes.
“The honeycomb was long enough that it wouldn’t fit in one box,” Rich said. “We had to stick it in three boxes.”
Grennan-Smith, who arrived at Caldwell’s home with her in-laws, said they found the honeycomb structure in the wild to be “fascinating.”
“It was very cool to see this colony of bees, without any human help, build their own comb,” she said. “You can see the actual structure of the hive. The combs were vertical just like you provide in a bee box. But it was more of an oval shape, almost like a teardrop. It was wider on the bottom and narrower at the top.”
Once the bees were removed from the tree, the Smiths put the bees in a hive nearby for a few hours so the worker bees were able to return home before the entire hive was moved.
“We strapped it up and left it there until 8 at night,” Rich said. “We think all the bees were in.”
Caldwell and her family have lived in Jamestown for two years after moving from Portsmouth. Her husband, Matt, grew up on the island. Although Caldwell was traveling when the rescue took place, Anderson was delighted by the limited action he was able to witness.
“It was the highlight of the week for sure,” she said. “He was excited that he found them, and then he was excited to see the folks in bee suits. It was great.”
The Smiths left the swarm in the boxes for two days because they did not want the bees to escape and find their way back to the Caldwells’ tree. The bees survived, but they do not know if the queen and her brood are still there. They will find out when the hive either grows or depletes.
“I hope they survive, because out in the wild, they would not have. They’re too exposed,” Rich said. “It was fun. It’s a unique hobby.”
