Tree-cutting crews from Ohio-based Arborturf Environmental Services moved into Allentown last week as the city entered into the final phases of FEMA-funded tree removal. On August 2, this storm-damaged maple at the corner of Arlington Place and College Street, nearly 100 feet tall, was taken down, along with two similar trees in the same block. It’s one of around 7,000 trees the city has lost as a result of the storm. The crew brought it down expertly in about two hours, in stages—first the big limbs, then the crown, then the trunk.

What the crews left behind was a stump—in this case a stump four feet high, because a mysterious concrete block at the bottom of the hollow trunk prevented the saws from cutting it flush to the ground. The stump was soon attended by a small, disoriented swarm of honey bee scouts whose hive and queen had most likely been higher in the tree. Though the city’s federal delegation is lobbying FEMA to provide additional funding, currently there is no aid available to pay for stump removal.

The honey bees precipitated a call to local beekeeper James Busch, who arrived on the morning of August 3 with a homemade vacuum rig and carefully removed the bees. The queen and the hive had probably both been hauled away with the tree by city contractors, but Busch was hopeful that he could induce the bees to start a new hive with a new queen. (Busch is always looking for more honey bees; he can be reached at 578-1812.) Relatively new to the business, Busch gives away the honey his hives produce.

Though the city has found money to remove some stumps in a few neighborhoods, it’s good bet that they’ll be around for a long time in most of the city. Some Allentown residents are paying out of their own pockets to have stumps removed in city right-of-ways, so that they can plant replacement trees immediately (and some are reportedly planning to sue the city for lost home value). Meanwhile, at the request of neighbors in Arlington Park, local artist Michael “Cousin” Kelly has begun to carve this stump into a planter, a memorial to the lost tree—and a spot of color this autumn, when traditional colors may be more sparse than usual.