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Keeper tames bees; policed pleased

By ALEXANDRA ZAYAS
Published March 21, 2007

A woman called Tampa police about 1 p.m. Tuesday after she saw 10,000 bees swarming a palm tree outside of the AMF Florida Lanes bowling alley on Florida Avenue north of Linebaugh Avenue.

The officers threw up a string of yellow tape and debated whether to close a lane of Florida Avenue traffic.

No need to block off the street, beekeeper Ken Stack said. Those aren't killer bees.

They were honeybees - "integral cogs that make this world tick," he said.

These bees looked like they were traveling, he said.

And he knew exactly where from.

Some bees must have left the crowded hive that is inside a tree trunk at the carwash across the street, swarmed across the avenue, and set up on another palm tree.

Stack donned a hard hat and constructed a new home for the bees out of the old boxes, still drenched with the scent of the many bees it has kept before.

He covered his face with a yellow net and crossed the police line, pumping a smoker full of pine needles to distract the bees. With his bare hands, he gently scooped bees from the tree and dropped them in the box.

Without a sting, the bees bumbled into their new home in the contraption he made out of plastic crates and boxes.

Two hours after they settled in, they would travel in Stack's pickup truck to Wesley Chapel, where they would live in his yard or get passed on to fellow bee enthusiasts.

[Last modified March 20, 2007, 22:07:29]