Bethlehem Lutheran Church made the news Friday, August 10, 2007.

 Bees in our Carob Tree

Our newsworthy event:  Relocating bees who chose to make a tree at the church their home.  Now Bethlehem, like several Lutheran churches in the area, would love to welcome new members.  However, the 100,000 bees were more than the church or the carob tree on the property could handle.  At some point, the hive would have been too large and would have fallen to the ground, and that would have been a big mess for the bees and the gardeners who mow the lawns around the church.  So we contacted several people and asked them to rescue our bees.  Melinda of "Bees Knees" works in Orange County, and we hired her to handle the rescue.  Funds for the project were lovingly provided by the Paper Rollers.

Since bees and their dilemmas have been in the news so much, we thought that the choice of a bee rescue over eradication would be of interest to the news agencies.  David Lopez of KCAL was the first to arrive.  His cameraman set up a close-up shot of the hive, and we were allowed to take a peek at the bees' activities.  Next, came the cameraman for KNBC who took his turn focusing on the bee hive.  Next, came the Los Alamitos reporter for "The Orange County Register" and his colleague photographer arrived a short while later.  Vikki Vargas of KNBC and her camera operator arrived in the early afternoon and conducted her interviews.

As a result, Bethlehem was featured on the 12 noon, 3:00, 4:00, 8:00 and 11:00 newscasts for Channel 9; the 11:00 newscast for Channel 2; and the 6:00 and 11:00 newscasts for Channel 4.  We also made the first page of the Local Section of "The Orange County Register."

If you missed any of this, you can click on the following links and see what the buzz was about:

The Orange County Register -- Local -- Saturday, August 11, 2007

Channel 9's 12 noon live broadcast is in their video archive.  This link will take you directly to their archived broadcast.  Most of this video was used by Channel 9 throughout the day and the Channel 2 broadcast.

The Channel 4 site has posted their video.  This link will take you directly to their archived broadcast.

Our own gallery of photos posted August 11, 2007.

If you would like to contact Melinda, our bee hive rescuer, you can send an e-mail to this address:  beekeeper@blcla.org

Bee sting first aid:

If the person who has been stung:

  • is showing no signs of dizziness
  • has no trouble breathing
  • and has been stung only once, then here are some first aid tips.
  1. Remove stinger with a scraping sideways movement of a fingernail or knife.  This will prevent more of the venom (poison) from being pumped into the person's system.  Do not use tweezers or squeeze the sting.
  2. If possible, within five minutes apply a paste of baking soda or cold cream or wet salt.
  3. Apply an icepack to relieve the pain and calamine lotion to relieve the itching.
  4. Watch for any unusual reactions such as dizziness, trouble breathing and red blotches.  If this happens, GO FOR MEDICAL HELP RIGHT AWAY.

  

Updated:  09/29/07