The last time I wrote about the bees, I had recovered from the loss of my bees by accidentally getting another swarm to take up residence in the hive. Alas, those bees did not last too long, and they succumbed to those pesky wax moths and departed. So I was again left without bees.
After my first loss, I had put my name on a list of beekeepers who are prepared to retrieve bee swarms from around town whenever they were reported. I must admit I did not particularly think through all the issues involved with this and I had pretty much forgotten about it until I got a call on Tuesday from a lady in my neighborhood who had a swarm of bees in her backyard. So, not really knowing what I was up for, I went over to her house with a hive box and all my gear (gloves, veil, smoker - all the stuff that makes me look like a pro).
The bees were all massed on the edge of the roof, in the gutter and under the eaves. Not the nice tidy ball of bees that I had read about in books that hang from a tree and are easily dislodged into an awaiting hive. So there I was precariously perched on the top of a step ladder holding a hive box in one hand and a bee brush in the other trying to sweep the bees off the roof into my box. It could have been quite the disaster but, despite my inexperience, it turned out uneventful. Some of the bees made it into the box while others just flew around haphazardly and then went back on the roof. I had about three attempts to dislodge more bees from the roof into the box, and then decided to leave the box on top of the ladder close enough to the roof so that hopefully they would be enticed into the more salubrious surroundings of my hive.
I left things like that overnight and the next morning returned to find the majority of bees had indeed taken up residence in the hive and over the next day I was able to lure nearly everyone else into the hive.
All in all things went quite well – for the first time I have captured a roaming swarm of bees and I was pretty pleased about that. Now all I have to do is keep them alive until next Spring when the nectar flow starts again.
The lady of the house with the swarm was quite thankful and showed great interest in the whole process (a candidate for her own hive in the future no doubt). Many thanks to my step-brother Howard (another candidate for a beekeeper) who went with me to watch the pending disaster, and to my friend Brian who came to the rescue with his taller step ladder. Howard was the only one who got stung (sorry about that) – it was just bad luck.
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