As Paul Harvey Would Say, "And now, The Rest of the Story...."

Last night I left the broken branch swarm with access to the cardboard box in which I planned to collect it. I spread a swipe of my swarm lure in the cardboard box and I sprayed the bees who were still on the ground with 1:1 sugar syrup. I hoped for the best and determined to see what happened the next morning.

Well, today is the next morning and lo and behold, the bees were all in the cardboard box!

So I suited up and put Dylan (who spent the night at my house) in his bee veil. His job was to watch from the sunporch door.



Here's how the bees looked on the underside of the cardboard "ramp" I had in frustration simply put inside the cardboard box last night.

I picked up the bee-covered cardboard and shook them into the patched together hive box I have for them. The rest of the day, Dylan talked about "Gwamma dumped the bees!" It was pretty impressive to see the whole lot of them fall as one into the hive box. You can see how they filled the space.


I don't have any more medium frames and these two medium 8-frame boxes were painted and ready to add to other hives. I only had five medium frames left so I added two drawn comb shallow frames and a shallow frame of honey. I had to do something with these bees today, though, so this is the best I could devise.

I used the bottom board from a 5 frame nuc that I have - so in this 8 frame box, the last three frames (the shallow ones) are bottom-less. The box needed something to support the bottomless side, so I used a 2 X 4 on the bricks below it to balance out the nuc bottom board. I used two deep frame end bars to make a shim on the outside edge to keep the hive from shifting. I had no wood at all so I used a plastic mite count tray to serve as a temporary top and put a flower pot on it for good measure.



I have more boxes and frames on order but the earliest any of that will be here is at the end of this coming week.

When I came back in the house, I called PN Williams, a local supplier, and arranged to buy from him some medium frames, a screened bottom board, an inner cover and a telescoping cover. He doesn't carry any 8 frame equipment, so I will have to make yet another arrangement tomorrow. I'll put my last 10 frame medium box on the bottom and move the medium frames from the current bottom box into it. Then I'll use a 2X4 as I did with Melissa to allow the 8 frame boxes to sit on top of the 10 frame. I'll still have an inner cover and top for the 10 frame but I'll manage.