While unnerving to see, even from a distance, the bee hive dangling from a tree in the front yard of Jeremy Messer is a unique sight for Robertson County.
“I have had three bee people out here,” Messer said on Tuesday. “And tons of people come take pictures.”
The hive, a series of elongated, fin shaped cones, is attached and the center of a world of thousands of bees in front of his Kentontown home, he said.
“On warm days they swarm the tree,” he said.
The hive was first noticed about three weeks ago, he said.
“They add a fin to it daily, it seems,” Messer said, adding he believes the occupants to be something other than run-of-the-mill wild honey bees.
“Google 'Killer Bees' and they look like that,” Messer said. “I didn't think they would live this far north. There are thousands of those killer bees in it.”
Officials at University of Kentucky have been notified of the hive and are planning to take it down later in the winter for an examination of the occupants, he said.
Messer has been able to walk past the hive without any bee attacks, he said.
In the wild, bees build similar natural hives and Messer's hive appears to be one of these, said Kentucky apiarist Tammy Horn.
“I have seen the photos of his hive and they do not appear to be Africanized bees,” Horn said.
“Africanized, also called killer bees, have smaller swarms and more swarms, and this is really too far north for them.”
What may have happened, Horn said, is that a healthy honey bee hive was displaced and was unable to find a suitable winter home in a tree or other location, so it built what it could for the queen, sheltered in Messer's tree.
Bees use their metabolisms from consuming honey all winter to keep the hive warm in freezing weather, Horn said.
“The best thing to do is let it be for now and in winter, after the hive has nearly exhausted its honey supply, is to find the queen and move the remainder of the hive to a better location,” Horn said.
With a decline in honey bee population, Horn said it is nice to see a feral hive doing so well.
“He can rest assured, I am very confident they are not 'killer' bees,” she said.
Coincidentally, a meeting intended to re-activate the Buffalo Trace Bee Association is scheduled for Dec. 11, at 7 p.m., at the Mason County Extension Office for anyone interested in learning more about bees and bee keeping, Horn said.
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