Two weeks ago this past Sunday my brother got a call about a swarm of honey bees at a friends house. We went right over and found that they were about 18 inches off the ground on a guy wire to a power pole in the guys side yard. A fine bunch of bees. We were slightly worried that the queen may be inside the yellow plastic covering that the owner company uses on the bottom ten feet or so of the guy wires but no problem she wasn't. It took us a few tries to get all the bees into the box. We finally just stopped and watched, some of the bees at the entrance of the hive started fanning with their butts up in the air. This is a dead giveaway that the queen was in the hive. It was a couple of hours before dark by now so we left the hive in place for any scout bees that would come back. Well it turns out that we left the hive there for four more days just due to scheduling conflicts.
On Thursday night I went and retrieved the hive and brought it home. I carefully sealed the entrance with a stick of wood an a couple of screws. This is when I got my first sting. As I was lifting the hive box to put it into the truck it slid off to the side of the bottom board just enough for a few bees to get out. As I lifted I held the hive against my stomach mashing a bee. BAM she popped it to me. I know that it was completely my fault that I got stung because these bees have shown themselves to be completely gentle during all of the handling that I done to them since then. When I got them home I put them on a couple of cinder-blocks to keep the hive up off the ground.
Friday morning I removed a 2 inch chunk of the wood blocking the entry. It only took a few minutes for the bees to find the feeder jar just outside of the hive and get right to work moving the sugar water. The feeder jar is just a pint mason jar with five small holes punched into the lid. Once it is turned upside down a vacuum form in the jar to hold the feed in place till the bees suck it from the holes.
The area where we live is definitely in the country and there is lots of forage for the bees. Two days and 4 pints of sugar water later and they are bringing pollen into the hive. We feed them for one week and they haven't missed a beat. The only problem that I've found since then is that they have taken over one of the hummingbird feeders the wife puts out. No biggy though.
I've ordered frames, smoker, and a hive tool from Dadant as they are the closest supplier around here. Also built two more deep boxes as I had a couple of 8 foot 1x12 pine boards in the shop. The frames will be filled with pure beeswax foundations when they get her in a couple of days. It won't be a minute too soon as I was checking the hive day before yesterday I discovered that we had left an empty frame slot in the hive box and the bees are starting to build comb from the cover, not something that I can let them do.
I hope to get pictures and an update here when the supplies arrive.
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