"Monster swarm" of honeybees removed from a Metro facility in Oregon City

(APRIL 15, 2022) This week, the buzz around Portland is the unusual snow on Monday. However, last year at this time, there was a different kind of buzz. It came from a giant swarm of honeybees at a Metro facility in Oregon City.

Rob Hamrick works at Metro. His job is to control pests, like bugs and bees. He got a call on April 14, 2021. The Metro South facility needed his help.

“The bees swarm started slowly in the drive-through at ... Metro South,” Hamrick said. Metro South is a facility to collect household hazardous waste. “And it just started expanding and expanding and expanding."

At first, people tried to keep working and let the bees be. Soon, however, they had to shut the facility for the day. Then Hamrick called Glen Andresen, who is a beekeeper.

Hamrick and Andresen found several large groups of bees in the trees. Andresen says there were about 40,000 bees. He called it a "monster swarm."

The swarm was resting in the trees. The bees were looking for a new home. Andresen used his beekeeping equipment to collect the bees and take them to a new place, but he had to make two trips. The best part, perhaps, was that no toxic chemicals were used to remove the "monster swarm" of bees.

After Andresen took the bees home, the bees made 142 pounds of honey in a few months. That's almost 48 big jars! That is a lot. Usually, one bee makes only 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in its whole life.