SPEED CLIMB BODY THRUST

Today we went to Lyndhurst to see our bees there. Sharing the property with a Neo-Gothic mansion deemed National Trust-able, these ladies are the most historically minded of all our bees; I’ve seen hints of Gothic arches and buttresses in their honeycomb architecture.
Then CSB showed me a true feral hive of bees. Of course we couldn’t see much: just the bees clustered around the vertical crack high in the tree (a catalpa I think). I could only imagine the thousands of bees,with their comb and brood and honey, deep inside the dark recesses of the hollow.

And it just so happened that today was the happy occasion of the NYS Tree-Climbing Championship, right there at Lyndhurst. Teams of arborists and chain saw advocates from all over the state were competing in events like the THROW LINE (toss a weighted rope over a specific branch high in the tree. Not easy), AERIAL RESCUE (involving a stuffed dummy in a bright red tee shirt, dangling there awaiting rescue), and my personal favorite SPEED CLIMB BODY THRUST (just as it sounds).

And throughout, standing around, in the shade of the massive copper beeches we love so much, were many arboreally-inclined young men with fitted tee shirts, industrial strength boots, tool belts and hard hats.